After the Quarantine
If I don’t die here’s what I’ll do
After the quarantine
I’ll eat out each night in a restaurant
I’ll travel anywhere I want
I’ll give a hug and blow a kiss
To my friends and kin who got through this
I’ll jump for joy and run outside
I’ll say a prayer for those who died
If I’m not dead, that’s what I’ll do
After the quarantine
If I don’t die here’s what I’ll do
After the quarantine
I’ll go to movies, I’ll watch a play
Go to the beach and stay all day
I’ll swim and bike and hike and run
I’ll go to bars and have some fun
Hell, I might even get a real tattoo
If I’m not dead, that’s what I’ll do
Yeah, If I’m not dead, that’s what I’ll do
After the quarantine
If I don’t die here’s what I’ll do
After the quarantine
If he still lives there, if he’s not gone
I’ll piss upon the White House lawn
And if he’s gone, I’ll seek him out
And stand around and scream and shout
That so many souls didn’t have to die
And that he’s the single reason why
If I’m not dead, that’s what I’ll do
After the quarantine
And if I die, lay me down to sleep
After the quarantine
If I was not someone who lived
If Covid took all I had to give
If breath got scarce and hard to do
And pain’s the last thing that I knew
Then raise a glass and stand to sing
I’d appreciate your remembering
The things I said I’d do
After the quarantine
© 2020 Chuck Puckett
Ash In the Heart
And anger blinds
Hatred destroys all
The red tide kills.
Yet somewhere before them
Is a smaller fire
Kindling for the soul
Sparks to see by.
The passions unbridled
Are wildfired things
No fire at all leaves
Ash in the heart.
© 2000 Chuck Puckett
A Tentative Emergent
She started
to emerge, one toe into the cold air.
Maybe she
realized she was wrong-ways around,
Or maybe the air was too cold, like the Pacific,
When you put
a toe in, then run back on the sand.
Whatever the
reason, the toe curled back inside,
Where it was
always warm and wet and breathing
Was not a chore, was not even an option,
But still
some undreamt future waking shock.
After a
while, I guess she accepted the inevitable,
And her head
sneaked out with a bloody business.
Born once and reborn twice, does that give insight
Or second
sight or does it incite the babe with shining eyes?
Now the air
is frigid in a sterile, hostile room,
The wordless
dream has gone all nightmarish,
And all that waits are the long years before she can
Crawl back
down into the womb of moist earth.
© 2009 Chuck
Puckett
Day Soul
Make a new face at the world
Or try a different way to breathe?
Look someone eye to eye
And catch their twinkle,
Or they yours?
Days are similar
But not entirely the same
Or else we could not ever breathe.
The soul of the day’s eye
Must be looked at deeply
Or it’s lost.
©
2000 Chuck Puckett
Devil At Four
Now watch the
lava slowly flow
Like minute
hands upon a clock
It hisses in
its parting.
The island
gods may never show
Their faces in the cooling rock
But their
slow dissolve is starting.
Above all
soars the tower clock
Whose tones
peal out in tritone parts
While rains
begin to shower.
The boats
across the water rock,
The keening wind, a siren, starts
To shred each
tropic flower.
An island has
a central part
That rises
high enough to show
Its mountain
sides are rocking.
The island
gods a-sudden start
Their nooks and ruts to overflow
In speeds too
fast for clocking.
A banshee
lightning display shows
A Moses
cleaving through the rock,
And stony
waters starting.
Hell and
Heav’n in polar flows
Twisting nature’s broken clock,
Her sanity
departing.
No mercy
comes from such a start
Where fire
and wind together flow,
Oppose each
other’s clocking.
No wisdom do
the gods impart
But just their awesome power show
In earth and
heaven rocking.
The devil
stands high on his rock,
And like a
dancer tries to start
The juice of
hell fire flowing.
The devil
screams at four o-clock,
The island gods have done their part
To keep their
fear from showing.
The fail the
flowers, fall the clock towers
Their parts all washed in tropic showers
The rocks are
calling, the ash starts falling.
© 2009 Chuck
Puckett
Elseware
| The eye is imperfect, yet wondrous Beholding and full, still empty. A literal billion of waves Lap at its shores, And it knows soft from harsh. A large finitude of frequencies find Their reception there. Still, where is the color: In the rose or in the eye or in the I? What is the name of this color red And who is asking this question in re the color seen? Where is the edge of shape, The end of depth? (Ware! The depth of shapes And the edges of the End) Subjunctive eye, might you see a small infinitude? Disjunctive I, is it You who constrains? When boundless, the untrained I Sees the scene, is seen by the scene, is the scene. Only the loss of magic and the endless Repeat of life's program Conceals the broad-banded spectrum. Were not for Elseware, then Stillness rains, A long drink for parched and busy eyes. |
© 1987 Chuck Puckett
Endless Road
It is a road
like any other
With
beginning, ending, a middle
It’s one way, and that’s odd a little
To go back
you must take another
I find myself
in some vehicle
I find myself
always departing
I find myself, it seems, by restarting
This
knowledge is no flood, but a trickle
It leads
somehow here forever
Somehow
always to this very second
As if this place has the power to beckon
As if this
time were somehow clever
I make no
sense of this constant action
I feel
compelled to merely accept
Which I do, truly, completely— except
There’s no
reason for this attraction
Why this
continuous translation?
To here and
now, this forever going?
What keeps the soul in transit from knowing
Its ultimate
destination?
© 2011 Chuck
Puckett
From Base To Crown
From base to crown, a flowing breath
Alive and pure, a channeled force
Vibrating down beyond the death
That Mara claims lies waiting with
The darkness, striding on her horse
But darkness gives away to dawn
And light begins its morning path
The fear that darkness feeds upon
Is banished, beat by burnished brawn
Of sunlight, and the wise one’s laugh
For laugh he will, and laugh he should
As inner strength responds in kind
To light and breath, and always would
If those in darkness only could
Discover that they’re only blind
Only blindness keeps them from
The joy that dormant peeks within
From base to crown their joy will come
And light so brilliant strike them dumb
As wisdom bursts the cocoon skin
And rises on the breath of peace
It’s petals slowly drifting down
There waiting and at the victory feast
A smiling sunrise in the east
Who breaths a breath from base to crown.
© 2000 Chuck
Puckett
Ginkgo Tree
On Tuesday, I drove away in the morning.
The Ginkgo Tree stood in its full luminescence.
Did the sun shine through its delicate leaves
Or did it impart its own shine?
There is no more perfect autumn leaf,
No sweeter chalice for the colors of the fall.
On Tuesday night, I drove home again
The moon was in the Ginkgo now, a radiant being.
Each vein detailed the glowing phosphor,
Strained at the end of each small twig,
Inhaled the breath that fills last moments.
There is no sweeter chalice for perfect infusions.
On Wednesday morning, the golden carpet
Began to spread about the Ginkgo’s roots, too lovely
To walk upon, no muddy boot dares step there.
Tonight, when I return, the Ginkoo will stand naked,
Pierced by spears of circular dying and finished.
There is no sweeter swiftness than its swift going.
© 2010 Chuck
Puckett
Haiku for the Next Century
Brown plains,
salt-parched fields
Water cresting on the coasts
Thirsty sun
sucks dry
© 2009 Chuck
Puckett
Resisting Revenge
Largesse,
not revenge
Leniency, not retaliation.
Retribution feels righteous
At first.
But vengeance gets firmly
Lodged in the heart,
A leaden poison that
Clamps a badger’s claw on the soul
And deforms it into darkness.
Forget, don’t hang on to it.
Forgiveness, not hateful atonement.
Leaving behind a long-held pain,
That is freedom.
The spirit that flies away
From dark mirrors
Sees clearly the light that
Shines in spirits everywhere,
A light that melts away a hard resolve.
© 2011 Chuck
Puckett
Spinning
Remember
spinning without end?
As a child,
just hold your arms out
And twirl and
watch the world
Go by
impossibly fast.
Even as a
child,
You knew how
the spinning ended:
Sprawled on
the ground,
But with that
delicious whirl
Impossibly
going on
Even while
you lay still,
The sky
impossibly orbiting
Across your
eyes.
You tied to
the earth,
And the impossible spin
Worth falling
down to gain.
© 2011 Chuck
Puckett
Stage in Dark Light
No
earthly forms defines the breath
Quite beyond imagined bounds
Cold light followed close by death
Silent feet, unhallowed grounds
The mind obscured by shadowed thought
Without the shapes that thought requires
Hangs wisdom here, so dearly bought
By
shredded souls and lost desires
In darkness born and dark upraised
So
darkness 'round the thing defines
Thus blasted lives are highly praised
And
broken wills and empty minds
The uttermost and final scenes
Reveal behind the blackened scrim
The
horror held in primal genes
Has
fully grown to honor Him
© 2011 Chuck
Puckett
Stained Enlightement
Parts of me vibrate keenly
In perfect synchronicity
With the Spirit of the Everlasting.
Other parts of me move in mud
And slide irrevocably
Into the Absolute Abyss.
Some people say that the Abyss
And the Spirit of the Everlasting
Ultimately touch each other
And discover their Unity.
Some people will say anything.
Vibrating keenly
You’d think I’d know the difference.
Sliding in mud
It’s clear I never would.
© 2011 Chuck
Puckett
Talisman
In a desert vast, whose endless sand
Flows past the world’s extreme
The breath of God blows all the time
The hot winds never cease to whine
So empty does the landscape seem
To’ve never known the eye of man
A blast of air roars from the West
Across the barren plains
Disturbs the sands and blows them back
Reveals a deeply hidden crack
In rock that hides beneath the grains
Unseen for ages limitless
A passing scholar, should one appear
Might peer inside the door
And there perceive a glowing sign
A searing brand prints on his mind
Recalling all his ancient lore
He recoils in startled awe and fear
Far older than the very hills
This shining object is
Made from iron that formed the sword
That guarded Eden for the Lord
Its power endless would be his
Who bent it to his steadfast will
With just a thought could wipe away
The evils in the world
Disease and war would be no more
Hunger gone, and gone the poor
Pain and suffering finally cured
Peace would reign for every day
If only one could find
This boon for all mankind
But no such scholar happened on
This ancient talisman
No seeker found the answer here
And thus no magic did appear
To halt the woes of modern man
To turn the tide before we’re gone
A magic cure is empty air
It offers no way out
It’s on ourselves me must depend
Our hearts and brains, our dearest friend
This simple fact we must not doubt
The answer’s never been out there
The ages make it clear
The answer lies in here
©
2020
Chuck Puckett
Watching Water in Springtime
Blink. The
lake is crystalline motion.
Blink. The
live oaks breathe the April breeze.
Blink. The
sun breaks its shards on the sawtooth water.
Blink. The cars rumble over the pebbled roadway’s tan roughness.
Blink. The
porch is Kelly green deck and peach furniture and pale blue ceiling.
My eye never
tires of this sight,
I could go
blind and the canvas
Still unfolds
where I have painted
Luminescent scenes with diamond brushes.
I trust my
mind’s camera with many jewels.
© 2011 Chuck
Puckett
We Face An Unknown Past
From a future too well known
The future runs us down so fast
And now-here's always flown
We spin in howling winds
But plow our lives in rows
The straight line suffers many bends
As to its center goes
We live in realness dreams
Though dream what may be real
To press against the limit seems
The way to prove we feel
We write once more the page
Where once we wrote in ink
Digested by some cosmic phage,
Reframed by how we think
We seek to meld the One
From multitudes of wills
Suspicious that when union's done
We'll lose the separate thrills
We put our faith in love
That love will conquer fear
But is our love refined above
Or manifestly here?
© 2001 Chuck
Puckett
What If Kipling Was Wrong?
What if I
didn’t keep my head
When everyone
around me was just losing it?
What if
Rudyard Kipling was just wrong?
Or, more
likely, confined by another time
Whose
sensibilities and rationales
Implied and
required and were constrained
By mores and
moods and minds
More genteel
and reasonable than ours?
What if our
time and place are themselves
Headless,
pointless, rabid and remorseless?
What if the
very world were itself insane,
A madhouse
forever up in red flames,
Gaia in
menopause, hot-flashpointed,
Viral and
foaming, her mindless children
Running
rampant at each other,
Devoid of
sense, stripped of meaning,
Flayed by
experience, ceaselessly
Bombarded by
sights and sounds
And fears and
hates and death and fires
And winds and quakes and wars and drought
And hunger
and pain and hopeless tomorrows?
What if the
only meaningful response
Was to mean the world was full of it?
Was to scream
one’s head off?
©2011 Chuck
Puckett
Teacher
In Honor of Virginia Guthery
How far beyond measure
Is the worth of the true teacher.
That rare soul who
Can lead your soul
To follow the endless search
Into what lies below
And what soars above,
And what connects it all.
Mentor, yogi, rabbi, shaman,
Teacher. The one who
Will not accept less
Than the best you have
And then demands that
Which is beyond your best.
The one who won’t reveal
The answer, but instead
Points to a path that leads there.
Who imparts knowledge,
But especially that knowledge
Which, when unwrapped,
Unfolds into a map.
The secret places do exist,
But only for those who seek.
They are not merely given.
We all sojourn alone.
The barrier between souls
Is infinite, but not
Impassable.
Students trudge in rows,
Endless empty faces,
And the chance is small
That any will encounter
A jewel in the classroom.
Will look up and see
A bright flare that ignites
Their fire to learn,
The zeal to discover.
There is no metric
That measures the worth
Of the ones who make
The universe your doorstep.
©2017 Chuck
Puckett
Headline 3
insert content here