Crocodile Wu Wei [Lyric Poem]

Sunning on the shore,
As in days of yore
When the ancient beast
Stood its ground to feast,
Waiting for one to crawl
Near its gaping maw...
Then, SNAP!
CRUNCH! - Crunch - crunch...

“Ultima Thule: Dedication to G. W. G.” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]

With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas,
We sailed for the Hesperides,
The land where golden apples grow;
But that, ah! that was long ago.

How far, since then, the ocean streams
Have swept us from that land of dreams,
That land of fiction and of truth,
The lost Atlantis of our youth!

Whither, ah, whither? Are not these
The tempest-haunted Orcades,
Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar,
And wreck and sea-weed line the shore?

Ultima Thule! Utmost Isle!
Here in thy harbors for a while
We lower our sails; a while we rest
From the unending, endless quest.

“The Lilly” by William Blake [w/ Audio]

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble Sheep a threat’ning horn;
While the Lilly white shall in Love delight,
Nor a thorn, nor a threat, stain her beauty bright.

“Sorrow” by Edna St. Vincent Millay [w/ Audio]

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain, --
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
Neither stop nor start.

People dress and go to town;
I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
Or what shoes I wear.

Quest [Lyric Poem]

Is it every person's dream
To be what one is,
And not what one seems?

Or would one rather be
The creature of one's dreams --
Who no one ever sees?

Or should one be the best
Of real and imagined:
The host and the guest?

How much of who we are
Is the views of others
And how much is ours?
(And is any of it
Written in the stars?)

“The Shepherd” by William Blake [w/ Audio]

How sweet is the Shepherd's sweet lot!
From the morn to the evening he strays;
He shall follow his sheep all the day,
And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

For he hears the lamb's innocent call,
And he hears the ewe's tender reply;
He is watchful while they are in peace,
For they know when their Shepherd is nigh.

Picture Horse [Lyric Poem]

Stacks and stacks
of wooden plaques:
Prayers on front,
Art on the back.

Each a wish
and a dream?
More an expression,
or so it seems.

Whatever prayer
may be writ,
There’s always
something
more to it.

A need to show
one’s unique soul:
To tell the world
that one is whole.

A life reduced
to a shingle:
Multitudes,
to a single.

“In a Disused Graveyard” by Robert Frost [w/ Audio]

The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never any more the dead.

The verses in it say and say:
'The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay.'

So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can't help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?

It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.

“A not admitting of the wound” (1188) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]

A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside -

A closing of the simple lid
that opened to the sun
Until the tender Carpenter
Perpetual nail it down -

“Wine Spring” by Pan Lang [w/ Audio]

I remember viewing the West Lake
While leaning on a pagoda rail.
The boats all clustered in threes or twos.
The islets under deep Autumn blues.

Flute song arose from among the cattails.
And a line of white birds - overhead - sailed.
I planned to fix my old fishing pole,
but clouds on water had my mind & soul.