The way is backward

 

October 31, 2013  (I was 68)

 

The way is backward

along a mobius pass

What was walked outward

forward is now the inner path 

I was seen now I see 

I was heard now I listen

what was smell is now aroma

I was touched now I feel 

I had tasted now have taste

no where is the tunnel there to here

 

When the way is icy

sharpen skates

When the way is hot sand on bare feet

walk at night

When the way is uncertain

sit and breathe

When the way is billowed fog

welcome home

When the way is lit by stars

admire the kingdom

When the way seems overwhelming

be inattentive

 

HALLOWEEN TREAT!  johnkallio.com

Go to AUDIO page, List to my rendition of

Aquainted With The Night  by Robert Frost 

from Harangutan

 

October 30, 1994  (I was 49) 

 

      from Harangutan

Young paleontologists spend four

months in the southern Sahara recovering

dinosaur bones of previously unknown species;

stories of predators and victims’ cases reopened

eons beyond the statutes of limitation.

Young historians working hard to become history,

elated to be a footnote, potentially a chapter.

The energy of adrenaline dims memory

of double fortnight jeep caravans

across treacherous sands more vast than

a capitalist nation and with threats as real.

Persistence brings home the bones;

the clever young scientists vow

this is only the beginning.

 

HALLOWEEN TREAT!   johnkallio.com

Go to AUDIO page, Listen to my rendition of

Aquainted With The Night  by Robert Frost 

Even more slogans from the bulletin board

 

Even more slogans from the bulletin board

–posted over my teaching years

 

I refuse to have a battle of wits

   with an unarmed person.

If it don’t make sense

   it’ll never make dollars

Children should be beaten once a day

   If you don’t know why, they do.

Hug your kids at home

   belt them in the car

The hand is quicker than the eye

   but only the nose runs

The first human to hurl a curse instead of a weapon

   founded civilization

Never fall for a tennis player

   to them love means nothing

Keep an open mind

   and people will fill it with garbage.

                       *

HALLOWEEN TREAT!   johnkallio.com

Go to AUDIO page, Listen to my rendition of

Aquainted With The Night  by Robert Frost 

Billy The Kid (chapter 117)

 

from this week in 1969  (I was 24)

 

  
Billy The Kid (chapter 117)

Hey, Billy the Kid,

you’ve got dust on your shirt.

Dust on boots is understandable

and you’ve plenty of that,

but on your shirt?

 

If you stopped just outside of town

to blotch it on,

I’m disappointed.

 

It doesn’t look blotched,

but maybe you’ve done it before

and know how to get it on just right.

 

At any rate, I’d rather believe your are real

standing there without a hat

at the water trough.

 

I guess your nickname had never before

stuck in my mind;

it will from now on.

You are a kid,

or maybe I’ve grown old.

 

In how many other places like this

have you stopped at a trough

to soak your neck cloth,

and how many times have you mounted

and ridden on with a quick nod to a man

who may have grown old?

The way is backward

 

from this week in October, 2013  (I was 68)

 

 

The way is backward

along a mobius path

What was walked outward

forward is now the inner path

I was seen now I see

I was heard now I listen

What was scent now is aroma

I was touched now I feel

I had tasted now have taste

No where is the tunnel there from here

Can you get up? How many fingers?

 

from this week in October, 2006  (I was 61)

 

Can you get up?  How many fingers?

You got your bell rung.  Can you stay in?

It’s true.  It happens.  I saw stars.

Not stars exactly, sparklers.

Shit ya I can stay in

What the hell kinda langwidge is zat?

Cool dark night of my senior year

Took it on the chin, mighta been kicked

Part of the game, happen zall a time

Back in the huddle call signals for the play

really nice night someone carries the ball

Threw a block in there like I was suppose ta

Kept on goin’ and things took me with ‘em

Sometimes seems it was most real

Combined waking with reality of dreams

There are times the microcosm gets kicked in

 

from this week in October, 2006  (I was 61)

 

There are times the microcosm gets kicked in

and all is awash in blood light

Anxious dread that it’s too late

to correct a mistake of exposed weakness

Futility looms in the rapid patchwork attempt

to construct a temporary defense

that may not work at all

but may make time to think of something better

Then the persistent fury abates

as if the resolve of the invading force weakens

The dams hold with seams leaking

and we take our breaths in relative calm

to consider major repair to our small craft

knowing it will never be enough for all that’s out there

more slogans from the 8th Grade bulletin board

 

more slogans from the 8^th Grade bulletin board

–posted over my teaching years

 

Give me ambiguity, or give me something else

Time wounds all heels

Truth is the first casualty in any conflict

We are united by our doubts, divided by our convictions

When it comes to helping you some people stop at nothing

A verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on

I used to be lost in the shuffle until

   I started shuffling along with the lost

Consistency requires you to be

   as ignorant today as you were yesterday

I’ve done so much with so little for so long

   I can now do anything with nothing.

In communism man feeds upon man

   in capitalism it’s the other way around.

 

HALLOWEEN TRICK OR TREAT? 

johnkallio.com Go to AUDIO page,

Listen to my rendition of

Aquainted With The Night  by Robert Frost 

When did the first identity I might recognize

 

from this week in October, 2010  (I was 65)

 

When did the first identity I might recognize

patch from an ancestor unknown

even a single generation ago

part of its soul into me

If they knew no one talked

If they wrote no one kept the script

If they sang no song was ever heard

I have not any art from them

All the knowledge known and expressed

 

October 22, 2010  (I was 65)

 

All the knowledge known and expressed

cannot equal the known but unexpressed

So much written but never read

pictured or sculpted and never seen

composed arranged and unheard

fabrics woven never felt

fragrant esters inhaled but once

tastes of numbers and notions

found and forgotten a thousand times

images thought by disembodied mind

thoughts imaged by unmindful hand

Master work in the bottom drawer

of a cabinet in grandfather’s basement

If we find but one piece

we search forever for another

Been waitin’ there’s a delay

 

October 21, 2006  (I was 61)

 

Been waitin’ there’s a delay

Expected arrival before yesterday

Expected very little and not exactly what

I suppose it’s supposed to be

I’ll take what I can get

but ain’t lookin’ for naught

Have always known nothing’s free

Try to stay out of debt

Hope to receive what it is I bought

 

Get somethin’ and it gets you

Own it’s what you got to do

Find a place to keep it and put it where

you can get used to using it

Let it grow to be a help

on a shelf beneath the stair

Ownership no excusing it

whimper a guilt repent a whelp

Give what you can and buy what you dare

What we have we have to give

 

from this week in October, 2006  (I was 61)

 

What we have we have to give

Greed is a seed that will not digest

No platitude can survive

the cynical appetite of gluttony

We eat each other out of fear

that we will be eaten

 

What value resides in the currency of the past

A few collectors pay quaint dollars

for essays on morality

written a hundred fifty years ago

when the land on which we stand

knew no one like us

 

The dream the adult tries to realize

is out of date before the attempted fact

before the bewildered eyes of his child

to whom the symbolism is obscure

The context inaccessible

as stilted dialogue from an old movie

 

Better to offer the silence

hidden beneath all our progress

in the depths of a cave or mineshaft

or under the weight of water

or within the darkness of space

unoccupied and un-interpreted

Buddha Masque #3

 

from this week in October, 1991  (I was 46)

 

         Buddha Masque #3

Right observation of cause and effect

disciplines the five senses to the power of will

Action moves in the direction of thought

Wisdom appears from the pure and peaceful mind

Sympathetic mind resists the evil heard

Wild words controlled arouse no hatred or anger

Impurity of thought is but a laugh to the old

The idea of fire is not a match for the will of the cold

Old snakes climb mountains the young would not try

If a bird has two heads one eats sweet fruit

The jealous other eats the bitter fruit of spite

To choose between demons is to trade the self for a corpse

Peace and harmony reside in the internal struggle of the mind

If you work hard at having a peaceful life

 

October 18, 2017  (I was 72)

 

If you work hard at having a peaceful life

work through conflict with compromise

sell at a fair price and buy at the same

give away knowledge for friendship

praise skill wherever you encounter it

try to find comfort in humility

recognize the grief in others’ loss

share what you have before it spoils

make no commitments you cannot keep

fulfill promises with dedicated effort

your life will lack the drama people read about

and you’ll be granted the joys of anonymity

by other anonymous persons

I walk the invisible dog in the park

 

October 17, 2013  (I was 68) 

 

I walk the invisible dog in the park

It follows without a leash

Sometimes other people’s dogs

half know the invisible dog is there

There is no canine confrontation

My attention is invisibly occupied

Other dogs chase squirrels that can see

The invisible dog chases nothing

I do not know where it sleeps  I do not feed it

It does not arrive in the car with me

Many dog walkers bag the defecations

Many of us do not  I go unnoticed

I don’t know what kind of shit the invisible dog leaves behind

It is not my intention to walk the dog

I am here for the exercise the light the serenity

which I achieve only in moments the dog minds itself

Most of the time it trots alongside

close enough for me to count its breaths

It is not in the car when I drive to the rest of my day

The distant wail diminishes but does not cease

I’d like the invisible dog to successfully run away

Whatever path I walk I remain a familiar scent

Mutual Mute-tation

 

October 16, 2010  (I was 65)

 

         Mutual Mute-tation

When you reach an age

they stop letting you change

Suggestions are treated with silent suspicion

Ideas encounter silence

and rebound through the mind

that no longer exists in any changeable way

You know they are thinking more

of what they will do

when they no longer have to be silent

So act alone on the changes you suggest

and learn to suggest them silently

The weight is a common metaphor

 

from this week in October, 2019  (I was 75)

 

The weight is a common metaphor

When applied its meaning is rarely mistaken

responsibility and expectation

Once taken up it must be carried

to satisfy a faulty perception

a self-conceived obligation

in the karmic progression of choices

a repayment of nothing owed

a vengeful protection of lost allegiance

the totality of guilts and regrets

that refuse to pass in time

the presumption of Atlas

refusing to cast it off his shoulders

a failure to laugh at a ridiculous endeavor

Retired time accelerates

 

from this week in October, 2006  (I was 61)

 

Retired time accelerates

and its undertakings multiply

Urgency requires efficiency

All is immediate

The meditation that orders priority

is easily lost in the scheduling

When fatigue is ignored

and the pace persists

a coffee break isn’t enough

The breakdown that happens

disconnects all those with expectations

of immortality

8 days later

 

October 13, 2013  (I was 68)

 

 

October 13, 2013  (I was 68)

 

        8 days later

To come down the stairs

not of independent volition

is a demanding revelation

not whole and immediate

but of considered expansion

well after the fact of the act

The initial realization of survival

is quickly followed by truth of insecurity

The assessed relief no major damage

and a few deep breaths acknowledge the grace

of an occasion of good fortune

Then a shift of attention to minor immediacies

There are abrasions contusions and sprains

blood to stop ointments and bandages to apply

while the considerations begin to focus

The implications insistently apparent

alone in the house in the night

mobile phones out of reach if I were immobile

Then the ibuprofen and extra pillows

the ice bag moved from station to station

with an amalgam of prayerful incantation

Curses at careless unawareness

Hesitant tear of self-pity lost

in a grander wakefulness as I dropped to sleep

Night aroused the deeper pains

Aches of bounced muscles and yanked sinew

arm shoulder hip knee and ankle

presented during my dawn walk

knowledge now that a recurring concept

would wait atop every stair