Blood Lust

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You aren’t cooking with gusto,

living with zest,

if you don’t need an apron.

It takes blood-lust.

Bacon, burgers,

melted cheese,
or chicken skin’s

wet, cold grease.

Wash your hands.

Sharpen the knife.

Stains are material

in the menu of life.

Beet juice, wine stains,

poultry guts,

coffee-dark threads

solidifying into clots.

You can’t wash lust

from your clothes, or your eyes,

or damn the well

from between your thighs.

Waste twenty-dollars
on broken wine bottles,

with cash from pockets

stained by red puddles.

Cook wild and free,

and pay the cost.

Abuse the apron
with the mark of blood lust.





(definition of blood lust: strong desire to take part in or witness killing or violence.
My renewed interest in cooking with a passion, has also piqued my sense that cooking, like living hard, is messy and violent.)

Find your edge. Sunday 160.

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It’s time to

wake up

on

edge.

You

threw

thoughtless sound

bites.

Axes

conviction-sharp,

stuck.

Falling

to the ground

around me,

are blades,

dulled by mis-use

and neglect.

-just an old prose poem, fiction today, whittled down for the 1 year anniversary of Monkey Man's blog: Sunday 160 Flash Fiction challenge.  Visit his blog HERE and meet the challenge of a short story or poem in exactly 160 characters, including spaces! 

 Happy anniversary flashers!

In a breath of time

In a fog out of a fire


Circular myopic un-centeredness

Repeating recycling reminiscing rehearsing

Gazing blocked by a gauze veil.



Blurred vision in a smoky haze,

Only seeing my navel and toes.

How beautiful life is

Safely in myself with hindsight.



What if, what about, when again, who will know?

Nowhere, nobody, no-how, nothing.

Tangible life goes on in spite

Answering nothing, answering all.



In my wandering spiral web

Clarity comes when a veil is lifted,

Unannounced, unbidden, unaware until

Instantaneous awareness, and vision’s rippped open.



All is detail, all is color, all is texture, all is thine

None is here, none is permanent, none is mine, all is divine.

Variation and contrast, translucence and iridescence

Outside, over there, otherness, horizonless,



Seeing the soul in a breath of time.


photo: HG Giese

midlife haiku

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Midsummer night's dream:

hemi-moon, hillsides golden,
bacchanal rebirth.











Photo: Jules Giese.  my favorite California wildflower: Columbine.
just because.

puzzles

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(Mom said, “do you like puzzles?”

“Not especially”, the boys said)

A good jigsaw puzzle is just the thing
for a slow summer day…in the leaden heat,
silent only for the quiet buzzing,
cicadas or mosquitos?

Piece this into a pattern:
map steps to a point to pitch a tent
by connecting 13 “youth” in pieces.
( AKA "growing from a child to a man")

Watch the shapes nudge and turn
Colors clash or line up
Edges emerge as matches
Concave with convex

The puzzle grows in unity
pieces form the whole
matrix mapped in moments
of cohesive communication.

10-50-100-200-1000 piece puzzle,
what can you handle?
We don’t count the contents,
they’re complete in the one final image.


This Fathers Day has been a gratifying full circle for me. One gift my father gave to me, before he died at the age of 66, was the annual 10--12 day backpack trip in the high Sierra Nevada mountains.  This year I met a personal goal to take my boys and the Boy Scout troop on, a first for many, a backpack trip.  Although it was merely one night and only in the nearby river canyons, it was a start.  Thank you, Dad.........

You've Got Me Rising

-
-
Pat me, press me
Rollin’ out like dough

poke me, twist me
warmin’ nice and slow

toast me, baste me
restin’ when you’re done

spreadin' like butter
or eaten golden brown

It don’t matter
if it's yeast or soda,

in your hands is best
and I’ll do all the rest…

Now you’ve got me risin’


(I've always had a fascination with song lyrics, so this is my parody on  the blues tune "Rock me baby")  nothing new here....

Sunday 160 Genetic Galactic Genesis

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In the beginning

The Word


& 60 beats.


Let there be light


big bang, blink.


Firmament

dividing the waters


& mother’s face

from self.


Let land appear


& milkflow

from Pangea.












To find your place in the genesis of the universe, watch this from the Hubble Deep Field Telescope, and keep asking questions about our small blue planet. The 9th photo from the top is from a blank patch of sky, after focusing for almost 2 weeks. Billions of galaxies like ours, in one little patch of photography. (photo: Google images)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw

Life is rough

---
sea clashing,

frothing the rocks,

wind brushes a snare-drum song,

bare cypress branches moan,

rocks rattle in languid fingers,

a cotton, wind-dried
towel rasps

steamy skin,

a rope swing winds

and dizzily spins,

eyes spark

as fingers poke,

a joy-juiced hug rocks you,

coarse hair raises

blood-tingling life,

teeth sink

into my craving and satisfaction


photo: Jillian Standish

renewal

Manzanita tines

blacksmith forged bowers starred with

morning glory braids

The 2008 Arroyo Seco/Indians fire burned these river canyons barren.  The morning glories are covering the hillsides now, in green and white.

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Chimera lost, adventure won

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A finite line:

finding time.

Timeless climbs

where lessons chime.

Chimera met

as merely a fret.

Fires lit

as youths sit.

Skits read,

once hunger fed.

Freed stars,

asleep in snores,

To swim with snakes

in ice cold lakes.

Like it or not:

rashes? bites? hot?

Not lost, what a find,
on a finite line.

Photo: Santa Lucia Trail, Ca.  Backpacking with young boyscouts last weekend, an adventure!