Winter Solstice Poems by larry goodell

WINTER SOLSTICE

POEMS larry goodell

Photograph by Lenore Goodell

WINTER SOLSTICE

POEMS

Winter Solstice Poems Shadow Fool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Say . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Dory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 True . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Joy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Pines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Flowers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Orchestra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Ghosts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Feast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Night. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Res . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Farolito. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Where . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Night. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Outside-Inside. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 True . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Dawn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 08 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 First Breath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Prelude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Sing of Snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 (poem followed by a title). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Shadow Fool Sun-struck against the wall my shadow is dancing one two a violet blue a measure of this and sun-struck a shadow fool I'm not even moving sun-struck against the wall the dance is my shadow one two a violet blue against gold dancing sun-struck the wind soft leaves, man scattering one two a violet blue & against the gold wall shadow depth-lit a shadow fool I'm not even moving sun-struck against the wall my shadow is dancing.

/10Dec91#2

A Star's Star Oh star of everything broken into what you are little pieces of each other intermingling sea of non-sea mingling with the sea that is, the light that was, the light that guided good God guides by and light-light-lights light lights into every reflection refractions reflected as clouds move bits of blue by and poets, marbles, clay pots, computer monitors, pinking shears, coupons of dog food, Victoria safety matches, bare apricot limbs, Bourbon red turkey feathers, the Emperor tarot card, the bulging glass of my maternal grandparents framed, the rainbow thread in the window, the Einstein cloth frisbee, the white bookshelf the 75 watt bulb in my desk lamp, everything gives back the light that originally bounced and flowed and bounced back to the original light, the light of hope hopped, indistinguishable, pretend there's a sky up there, abstracts like hope & goodness knows no goodness till the original block buster of all time timed all & time fell with the light and warmth came to pull winter out of the rock cavern death of its past, and we could love from abstract to touch, touch bits of fragmented light opening eyes, lips seen before touching lips to lips to ears & chin neck, mouth hand the heat that keeps on giving through Hussein, Gorbachev, Prince, Jesse Helms, the dirty rapist every five minutes the radioactive waste maker and laser weapon inventor light breaks up off everyone's shoes as feet stamp down the crust of earth and humans being merely human forget plants scream when they die or say a vibe just as precious to the hearing as any slaughtered pig as light becomes the star it was, the stars shine equally on every one small or tall, so called good or ghastly bad what to make of it when it's already made, we're every bit as much a part of anything ending as we are a part of anything beginning. A star's star. There are so many stars.

/14Dec90

Say (improvising a poem on a given line) Well, well, well, three corners of soup & flowers. What kind of flowers & did the soup taste good? An emerging hyacinth in the window, "forced," not one of my wife's favorites, and hot & sour soup, her favorite: I don't like defining what the mind says. What pops into your skull is private property. So it's the end of 1992 what's the fuss. You have the sun & the stars, the earth, the moon, what more do you want? a prominent native said. But the human species has turned into the dinosaurs of our time. Will 1993 be the end of the new dinosaurs? Half will kill each other & the other half be trampled to death trying to get away. Marianne Moore wore a three-cornered hat. I wonder if she liked hot & sour soup. I'll bet you she liked hyacinths. Nobody's perfect.

/30Dec92

Hunky Dory Everything is Hunky Dory, Dory, but how many Warlords have you brot to the negotiating table? It's difficult when people don't like to talk anymore but like to talk at, Don't want to listen anymore and certainly don't want to pretend to any skills at logic. Everything is Chi-Chi, She'll Be . . . but it's been a long time since we've seen you comin round the mountain. In fact, they tore down the mountain & sold the dirt & now they're figuring out what to put there â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a gas station? How romantic "She'll be comin round to gas up when she comes," how American.

(sing)

Everything is A-Okay, Kay, except for all the religious folks of the world at each other's throats and little bigot groups who don't care a fig for their neighbors and want everyone to be just like they are, Everything is Peaches & Cream, Eileen, except for the better half that's trying to rob from the lesser half so they can have more of the world pie as they leave a bunch of homeless & schizoids & old folks to roam the streets until they die. Everything is fine, Clementine, but it's been a long time since you've been gone & Nature ain't farin so well either, are you lost & gone forever? Hunky Dory Dory, Chi-Chi She'll Be, A-Okay Kay, Peaches & Cream Eileen, everything is fine. Remember Clementine? /27Dec92

Permission to be True Are there honesty wagons in the heart of life, little children pulling them into adulthood? What a delight, the true spirit, unhampered. Is there any left in me, if there ever was, where is it? It takes exercise of the body, a simplification of the soul to be a part of that child again, in me, that can form me every day into the privilege of wide open skies, a dream of knowing I can be open too, if I let it flow. Oh flow little spirit, the plaything of the heart is the seed of truth, as I was a young gardener carrying shit in that wagon for some use. It is now, through work only, the perfect flower that breathes through me, every day, if I let it be. /31Dec2002 or first day of New Year

Open to Joy If there is no God there must be a pause that includes all. In that pause is peace as clashing occurs elsewhere. But since everything affects everything else, all is knowing. But in that still point, that center, there is no evidence of God. God is a word that stands for the emptiness that is peace. Peace, joy, focus. To admit God is to quibble, rather experience the experience-less. Experience-less-ness. Rather be experienced. A newborn in the instant. God is pretense. Precondition. Problem. Predetermine. Prejudice. Pre-supposition. Predisposed. Pre-fabrication. Pre-cognition. All unnecessary. All a side track. All the building before the foundation. The foundation of peace opens its doors. Come in please. Without a thing on your mind. Without a song in your heart. To lead into joy, no matter what. By excluding all, everything is included. Everything is complicated it is so simple. As people get a headache it’s so complicated, take a couple aspirin. Completely dissolve complexity. Be free. Simply simplify. Let simplicity out. Let “simply be” free. Let it simply be free. /Winter Solstice 2004

In the Air Music from dead people enlivens the air waves, the Doors, at the end of the hallway, coming true, as the oil wars boil over, and people barricade their SUV's, fortify their houses, horde their food, protect their water, turn into the assholes they've evolved to be, while the leaders are so anal retentive their entire food system has been reversed, mouthe fear farts from morning to night as they play with their porno stash hidden under their Bible. The wealthy are well-protected, the poor awash in world turmoil. Truth is at the bottom of the totem pole where the dance of the bird & animal spirits has long gone from memory. Do you hear what's coming? Do you hear what has been? Do you hear anything? There is a giant pause, a holding of the breath. And suddenly a realization that we may not be able to breathe anymore. /19Nov07

In the Pines, In the Pines Allow my energies to roll out to the tops of the trees to mingle with the air that sways them mountain ridged pines that reach up in grand height where I can barely reach with my voice, my particle of presence as everything is open mouthed & competing wanting to speak rather than hear and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d better speak when silent, in the mind, on the page to the lips not moving, to this that says nothing. That wind swaying columnar high trees takes over. . . . The nature of the mind predominates, and that only mirrors what Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen & remember. And is greater by far than anything Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve walked near.

/Oct07

Heavy Flowers Take the load off yr feet of heavy flowers in the sky flowers rain-damp stick to the skin until they dry out & pop back to life. Right now Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m rain wet in my mind and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m up there high someplace. Father forgive me for sticking to my guns writing poems that they were and causing you grief but what could you know about a stubborn vision. Mother forgive me for being resentful when you were sick the only hand you lifted was love as I am up in the air, mist in my eyes trying to come back to this reality of a dark rainbow in my mind. All these flowers at the cemetery when they buried my mother, snow falling on them.

Orchestra Mother of Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own truth, prayer the riches field the honor of honesty ordering the seeds of spring in the hope hope flourishes in the midst of dark caverns, the light shut out forever, forever a dawn awakening the hopeless, the list of the dead screaming from the ground, dead of winter under layers of snow, the cold interrupting any vision, marbles hitting the chimes as the music continues on and old age only bathes the present with motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s milk from the mothers that support all bands that sing, unstrapped horning orchestras, music swelling from the valleys the rivers flowing the bacteria & life, the connection honestly showing.

Ghosts Condition spent of the kind gravy of God Nothing has been eaten for centuries Death is too easy for history Man conquered inside out himself Suicide became the badge of war Women only were left to dream bad dreams and then a savior came, his name was Heckle and then Jeckle and they resurrected Mickey Donald, Goofy, then came Abbot & Costello Rocky & Bullwinkle, Gracie & Allen Red Skelton, Phyllis Dillar & the king of the New Empire Spike Jones, in the future there will be the history of hysteria, a guffaw at all the deadly serious as all our ghosts gather to laugh about life. /27Dec06

Feast Listen to the thanks of a thousand reasons you enter the season, the holiday free zone. Now we can work up a feast & then play, everything at once: is the Solstice the reason? First there is Thanksgiving, giving what you think of, grace around the table. Things could be worse, you jerk, lighten up! Hanukkah is coming with all the candle lights, and Christmas after the Sunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shortest day, just enough giving, and New Yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to celebrate a happy beginning to a long labored past: what more to suggest but be free with your compliments, strive with the winners and plan a new feast. Rest is appropriate after you eat. /27Nov08

Opposite: winter solstice light in our home 13

Guide Heavens, mystery of all my fears underneath my star cap I tilt my head back and gaze straight up into the star of zenith my head visualizes, beyond grasp beyond skull, beyond mind. Unknown star at the top of the universe the cold envelops and reassures to the bone I must hurry into the fire and enormous burning log. But that high star or was it planet was it other planetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s burning sun, forever too distant unknown worlds, gazes perhaps more knowledgeable than mine, a sure thing that, guide me I say over and over the top of the universe could be the bottom bottom and get shining at top height knowing past autumn the winter light. /2002

The Brightness at Night In this magic of wonderland Earth If the floods don’t kill me, or the hurricane mess or starving poverty of no jobs or poison water or food or air or an accident doesn’t trip me up I’ll settle for the wonder of the evening night under the falling belt stars of Orion here in the village touched by them and the whole constellation of blessing transformations Who blesses who? You who give me these words, do. Unknown known father of the mother of us all black night lit up by the shepherds’ flight & ritual posada, the mother & father & child find It’s not so good when you try to impress, you impress less, So just being under these stars on the magic belt of eternity turning more than suffices more than surprises the tarnished intellect. Christmas Eve

In Medias Res for Hepzibah Stein & Ezra Nebuchadnezzar If I get up in the middle of the night, I have to club the stench with my hypocrisy. If I subdue the piddle of the pew, I float to drench the valves with democracy Had I the energy of the Tao I’d form battalions of peaceful nitwits I’d enter the dharma of the heavenly Earth the endpoint of Katharine’s girth the hippopotamus of children’s turf If I plowed the sewing kit of a dangerous birth, I’d hope the carillons would ring till the Christians burst and Easter stuffs its Christmas into dirt and the pagan pussies unite to a dickless first and the monkeys embrace to evolve a human thirst for love and laughter wouldn’t you know it, wouldn’t you throw it out of meditation, as everything comes back in with a cement truck flattening my brain out from man to woman As I get up in the middle of the night and place the exercise mat on the flagstones in the middle of the living room floor and do a standing slowly turning around run with my arms stretched out as I turn running in place it is my own little helpful dance for my bones and the blood running through my veins which is the only reason I’m sane enough to be open to some change. Axis. Thomás. Influenza. A pin. A pat. A pew. /2002

Farolito Sun. Sunlight. Fire. Sunset. Blow torch. Fire light. Progressive zig-zag black headdresses, no faces, silhouetted by the fire. Bonfire. Dance toward. Audience leaning back away. Cinders. Luminarias, the old kind inter-stacked wood burning from the bottom up, lighting the progress of the young girl, young man, baby, donkey, shepherds (dressed up as) and people following thru the village. Warmth burning into the cold. Night aflame in points. Like stars come to life. Come nearer. Setting everything afire in my mind all shrinking back to reality, steering through the night, the long night, the longest night, the death night, the night bell, burning cracked set, holding onto the handrail walking down down into someone else’s hell become mine, the voice on the crashed radio saying “You will make it through, hold on” and the night gives over to the points of fire to warm it through, the pine logs in the stove romancing through your history, of all solstices past passing through sleep to the future which is always now, now in the sun. /17Dec09

Down There Where I Don’t Really Want To Be

To be down is under dreary skies are mood gray winter not so terribly cold self pity pities itself but can’t do nothin gets off butt finally but don’t do nothin time wastes by as sorrowfully hope sucks time washes away this bad dope this bad, bad stupid dope totally straight it feels like a cake of caca, do do piles of my own making. I slumber in to awake, I hope before I muck around in something worse. /31Dec98

Prayer Where Prayer is consciousness of gratitude Which is at base of life having exploded, decentralized & reformed Reformed & reformed again. Here I am, I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t explain it. Just to talk about my finger is too much let alone my heart or my brain. Here we go again, here I go again trying to understand the imponderable. Please let it flow, it will anyway the Way tells me, the Path of life I follow or do I lead & everything else follows? Yeah, right! The blessing of a deep breath. Everywhere. /24Dec99#1

The Brightness at Night Christmas Eve 1999 In this magic of wonderland Earth If the floods don’t kill me, or the hurricane mess or starving poverty of no jobs or poison water or food or air or an accident doesn’t trip me up I’ll settle for the wonder of the evening night under the falling belt stars of Orion here in the village touched by them and the whole constellation of blessing transformations Who blesses who? You who give me these words, do. Unknown known father of the mother of us all black night lit up by the shepherds’ flight & ritual posada, the mother & father & child find It’s not so good when you try to impress, you impress less, So just being under these stars on the magic belt of eternity turning more than suffices more than surprises the tarnished intellect. /24Dec99#2

Outside-Inside Evil is the exterior of God the outside, shedding of the skin the dead some reflection of light falls on with human stirrings bringing it to life again. And entering the interior, can grow in strength till flung outward another time in space by human effort of the good. The persistence of energy for better wins out in the full bodied joy of life stepping beautiful naked forward from the dead left behind. Nature in all her glorious attributes and the atmosphere of dawn kisses love into action. Universal being as simple as her presence. /25Dec2000

Fight for Dawn Power of light, enter the fight for dawn as those that would extinguish everything under the guise of good, reach out to blacken to darken, to waste, to kill â&#x20AC;&#x201C; may the lightness glimmer through to wings wings of joy or at least of honest light heartedness in the unveiling of morning colors and reflections of the energy of peace, peace be with you, & surround you & know you & pull you may I never harm another human being & be gentle to animals & husband to plants, daughter to the Earth, mother to myself son to the son & sister to the moon, brother to whoever I know best & love what I do. /from Escape at Home, 2005

Hear Here You are the best of my heart I depend on every moment and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what keeps me sane. You are the undefined focus that makes all things possible the register of love the aftermath of hate the renewing of the spirit nobody can put a finger on the plateau of peace that becomes a mountain a sanity of common sense that rushes through the heart and runs like a river through virgin territory. Beating you beat and fill the soul the depository of all things loving and loving back you are always listening when Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m most alone the ears fixed on me as if I really mattered the gift of sound in your voice that connects with everything I have to say in the complete being of now as I address myself listening. /13Dec07

Winter Solstice â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;08 The darkness descends and meets the darkness below. I see no light. Even the stars are obscure. Is this the end? Only one thing can save on this planet of the sun. One thing only can save us, the dawn, when dawn comes. /17Dec08

First Breath What can you say about anything beginning again? If a turnover is present are you in it, as it turns over? And you meet your right side up upside down as the year seizes itself and disposes of itself and starts all over again. Where am I. I seem to be the same old self, delving on the past, my only sense of time where is a renewing, a change, a completion of anything so that the only progress is something else and you must proceed, there’s no way out but growth and change or stepping aside and letting everything changing pass you by – as it passes me by I feel old. I didn’t jump soon enough. I didn’t jump, and yet I’m being drawn by a thousand suction cups forward – or something like that as I lie back here with nothing changed and I haven’t budged and nothing forced me and everything is just quickly becoming the past again and I see no way out but the future which I can’t see but it begins again throwing itself constantly away and bam! popping into the present again. the more I am attentive and aware no matter what or where I am I’m always beginning, beginning beginning happy birthday, merry christmas, happy new year – welcome to taking your first breath. /2012

Prelude The â&#x20AC;&#x153;sunlight of the spiritâ&#x20AC;? is the sunlight of the sun giving shelter to the spirit all day long as the spirit takes on a light of its own as if you could see it it burns like the sun. /Winter Solstice 2013

Note: last two poems read at candlelight reading, Luminous Night, Winter Solstice, Las Placitas Presbyterian Church December 21, 2013

Sing Of Snow Sing of snow ice forms in the mind the mountain is covered and is heavier it is so cold, the star-fluffs seem forever in their delicate haste my body is frigid from thinking about it. I have become the dark skies the wind and then the silence the miracle of turning to solid of the transformational universe of water. Water, wherefore art thou from one state to another the Wind Woman wonders turning inside outside herself as snow flurries become her and water which is the gain of life the exciter of generation of seeds arrives in bold layers after having fallen in ice snow clouds thundering like Zeus speaks like the mother of care wakes up the father to act and produce as if the world of plants and hibernating animals and humans shielded and warm are all praying silently mindfully send the layers and layers and blusts the savior-specks, the mass of light building crystals of falling snow our gardens are starved for your gain, sing of snow, the trees, dormant in their depths, are dying without you you in the gathering wind come from all gods within the nature of spring calling back to you, winter, the acequias dry, falling into disuse, are open to your coming, the wind and the cold the wind-beating ritual, the cold triggering change clouds forming denser, dense, heavy with the falling, the releasing song, sing of snow. / 29Nov2014

ice/water photo by the poet

Stars Tell All As the stars tell all you open your mouth and let them talk does a fire produce fire out of nowhere? Is the magic the true beginning? Is the beginning now in the dark? What stretched out of nowhere somewhere? We will find out by peering into our past. Give good thanks to the mechanics of science for building the trappings to get there to mirror our vision of the unknown suddenly speaking like stars from our mouths. “Oh did you want us to say something?”

The Burning Fires of My Outraged Heart can’t be quelled by this short-light day but early morning with Venus on the rise will tell another story, another turn as we all work instead of wait to return and make anew good sense, the songs of Earth choirs determing our directions directions North South East West anywhere. larry goodell /21dec2018

larry goodell - larrynewmex@gmail.com placitas, new mexico last 2 poems added 2018

WINTER SOLSTICE

POEMS larry goodell