Monday, October 31, 2011

Halloween

It's Halloween
And to me
There's nothing more frightening than
A password change.
Blogspot made me do it twice
Chase Bank made me do it twice
Why I don't know
And why today?
I know for a fact I typed in my passwords correctly
I had them written down because of my own absentmindedness
A password change
Sends chills up my spine
Anger through my body
Helplessness to my core
As if to say
We'll change your password so many times
You'll doubt your ability to think at all
Then we'll change it again
What will happen when I want to post another piece
Or check my bank account online
I don't know.
Pretty scary.

Denis Streeter 10/31/11

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Raisins and brown sugar

Stirring in
Tommorrow I will be out
Of raisins and brown sugar
The ingredients of my oatmeal
Ground raisins, oats, orange rind,
And brown sugar
Hot water brewing in my coffee cup
Tipping grounds into cereal bowl
Adding vanilla or almond extract
Adding powdered milk
Grinding oats and remaining raisins
Tipping grounds into cereal bowl
Hot water ready
Pouring over cereal
Stirring and adding soy milk
Just a routine
Stirring in the ingredients or our lives
Tommorrow I will be out
Stirring in
More or less.

Denis Streeter 10/30/11

Friday, October 28, 2011

Undercurrent

The buckles released their shadows on shading hooks
Hoping their silence would be remembered as light
As the sheep kept counting no shepherd could be found
And the light bent extremities into new orbits
Hoping to reach the coats of satisfaction
Some all-weather tires retired
And the oceans flooded the gates the buckles held back
Flooding the shoes to-do list
Trees waved plankton, flooding roads
Gutters swept and wept
Buckled to some returning pavement
Some shepherd of satisfaction
Shadows and wet light
And the sheep kept counting.

Denis Streeter 10/28/11

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

New slippers

Old slippers
Tape mended
Lost soles
Wandering garbage
New slippers
Warm and cling
Don't say much
Like old flappers
Lasted five years
Four dollars a year
New will have to last
Eight years
To be as reliable
What new stories
Will they tell
I only hear them speak
When they flap apart
Perhaps if I listen
I will discover
The new way
Soles speak.

Denis Streeter 10/25/11

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Time's relative

I was hanging out with
Time's relative
I was 50, he was 4
We talked about
What connected us.

I was hanging out with
Time's relative
I was 50, she was 12
Talking about our lives
How we fit
In this world
Time's relative.

I was 50, he was 50
Long time best friends
Discussing the ways of our lives
Waves of understanding
Time's relative.

I was 50, she was 25
Discussing what's known, what changes
Distances together
Apart
Time's relative.

I was 50, he was 79
We talked about what we know
What we expect
What's unknown
How we define that mystery larger than ourself
Time's relative.

I was 50, she was 90
We talked of poetry, events shaping our lives
Have shaped our lives
Our souls feeding each other nourishment
Time's relative.

I was hanging out with
Each of you
Opening myself
What connected us
What distanced us
Discovering that mystery larger than ourself
Time's relative.

Denis Streeter 10/22/11

Friday, October 21, 2011

Connection

The night woke me up
Or maybe the chamomile tea
Watch reading 4:30
Seventeen minutes fast
Chest cold
Place hands on chest
Warm
Off...cold
Warm, cold...
Thinking of condo meeting
My downstairs neighbor
Becoming more persnickety since his health is deteriorating
To the point where I wonder if I'm being too loud
At night or in the morning
Walking on eggshells
I believe is the expression
Waiting for his angry call
Which does not come anymore
The current board president
Brought up how much he has actually done over the years
Kind of like our condo grounds keeper
But he is not able to help much now
I know it feeds his frustration
His independence fracturing
I'd like to help him
But I don't know how
Warm...cold...
His frustration feeding my frustration
Keeping me awake
Something I know is lacking
Connection
And the work day starts and ends
I talk to a condo board member
Discover what I do not know...
His cutting back on smoking and
Recovering from two heart attacks
I feel a better understanding...
A closer
Connection

Denis Streeter 10/20/11

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Where we're at

Some of you may have noticed I've trimmed this way back...

Down the rabbit hole
Someone tries to tell you
Believe in God not people
I'm thinking God works through people
Doesn't matter who
I could quote scriptures, but that doesn't mean anything
It's how you live your becoming in this world
Being careful not to cast the stone
For all of us have moments of weakness
I like to think God works through all
Proof doesn't matter
We know in part
Pray for understanding
The highest kindest truth...and
When anger rabbit holes your day
Know the difference
I pray that I may know the difference
So that my anger may bring positive change
And that my empathy
My light
That some may call a vehicle of God's spirit
Might shine on others.

Denis Streeter 10/18/11

Monday, October 17, 2011

Knocks keep knocking

A rearrangement of previous poem "Silence speaks"

Tunes in my head
Driftwood in bottles
Washing icicles from my bed
Frozen dreams wake
Under sand blossoms
Sandpaper restless
Itchy to sleep
Snores keep vigil
Rest left behind
Dream scrape
Known your known
Tourniquet bottles in junkets of sand
Pulling your essense, sanding you smooth
Clear as moon nails
Unknown grows
Scraping moonscape
Reflection below
Sleep wake don't know
Driftwood in bottles
Your keep your keep
Driftwood your sleep
Where the knocks keep knocking
You know you know
The pearl in sand
Just out of reach
Drift to remember
Catch to feel
Reminder remember
Drift rearrange
Tune to retune
Lessons to know
Knocks keep knocking

Denis Streeter 10/17/11

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Remembering

At what point
Does the bad outweigh the good
You may say
Our legal system determines that
But there's something deeper
Some moral compass that can guide or derail our lives
You guide two nineteen year homeless youth
About a mile to a church shelter
You feel good.
But in spiralling downward moments
When you voice vindictive thoughts about family and co-workers
You feel bad...and in better times wonder
What drove you to voice such thoughts
Was it just venting?
Wanting to get attention?
Loneliness?
Sometimes I feel driven to express
The inexpressible
The forbidden
I don't quite know why
Maybe it's to keep the bad from outweighing the good
But I worry of the forbidden expression impact on others
I need to express myself
Selectively
On that ever changing continuum of human nature
Remembering the repercussions
Remembering the good
Love

Denis Streeter 10/15/11

Friday, October 14, 2011

Awakening

I'm trying to figure
Different ways of saying the same
So you'll understand
"Follow the yellow brick road about half way
On the left is the land of index cards."
Writing defective slips
"This little notepad
Lost its back
I'm sad to say
It's lost its tact."
I'm trying to figure
Different ways of saying the same
So you'll understand
It's not in the words
It's in your awakening
And mine

Denis Streeter 10/14/11

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Tension

Written after my Eclectic Cloggers practice...

Tension enters the neck
Travels down the spine
Works its way into buttocks, behind knees, and calves.
Dance makes me forget
The tension I feel
Then I sit and it all comes back
Get up, walk around, and it goes away
I'll never take a desk job
Too restless
I'll get up
Let my mind dance
Let my body dance
Let my soul dance
The tension away
At work
At play.

Denis Streeter 10/11/11

Monday, October 10, 2011

Slippers

The right slipper fell apart
During morning exercises
Sole flapped off
During achilles heel stretch
I got out
My clear duct type
Wrapped it up
Not quite ready
To buy new slippers
Not quite ready
To slip into the new
The old familiar
Still gripping my feet
Now bandaged
Mind soul
The old familiar
My war zone
Mind soul
Still gripping
Wanting replacement.

Denis Streeter 10/10/11

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Panic attacks

Words that come to me in my sleep
Torment my dreaming
Exactitude in remission
Total escape
By the time the finishing begins
Just off the roof tops
Into the tommorrow engine
White caps off black caps on
Turn the transmission
Up the stakes
Remove the tent
Your own making
Overhead
You always have that way of snowing
Catching some breeze of leftovers
You never knew behind
Foresight left you
And your fears
Grounding you restless
Sure as the stick picks the cheese
And you are done
Writing restless
Hoping cohesion
Into your late night mind
Gridding what may be inside
Your night
Not really wanting to know
That birth of such restlessness
Maybe it was that afternoon nap
Bringing night hours at your disposal
Hoping to make sense
Of those tommorrows you have not seen
But you have experienced
Those panic attacks of unknown
Or maybe they are known
Some cummulate trigger
Some changed password
Fueling inner turmoil
All your frustration
Into one furious wrapped up moment
And when asked why
The answer answers but does not explain
Why you repeat what you always do
Why the answers add up to one lonely moment
The you that is not you
Answers in reply, but
The password has changed.

Denis Streeter 10/9/11

Music and sandpaper

Wandered evening spread out its posts
Into the belly of life's darkness
Where the kangaroo pockets lie
Like some dark hole
Some space you can't escape
And in your wanderings
Space gives flight
To your doughnut holes
And other flying objects
Tuna in reversal
And the tin cheese on top
Filled with ice cream for the lactose intolerant
As the rubber duckies whine
No more gerbils for dinner
Just as the justice rolls
Out the back door into the oven
Quality buys food stamps
Shoves them into the microwave
Out comes a micromit
Kind of like a micromite
Without the bite
And the shadows grow
Over the stuffing out the door
Until your peace ends in a blast
Just before the shovels arrive
And the civility breaks
The ocean floor opens
You awake
You sing the songs your words
But no one hears
It's much better that way
It's what conscience say
But wording off
Try again with capitals
Still no good
No good
And the beasts open the door
You don't let them in
Or do you it doesn't matter
How'd you get so moralistic
It aint no literature
Lit erture
No nurture
Just get out the buns
No dinner tonite
Just the bones
Toss me the bones
It's music with all the sandpaper.

Denis Streeter 10/9/11

Friday, October 7, 2011

Double jointed shadows

Under castles chocolates die
Crabs of fingers start to cry
Laughing loops of silvery blue
Into bats of fu manchu
Fields wandered river cries
Tuning meadows into thighs
Sinking capsules to the moon
Under twenty-one balloons
Laughing seagulls joined the storm
Litter boxes not the norm
Into creeks the shadows crept
Under moss where shackles slept
Large as bottles thick as skulls
Sanding seas to season gulls
Scamper hamper in the wind
Pampered parrot porter pinned
Large enough to seize your why
Under table saws of sky
Wandering where chocolates die
Tunes tommorrow never lie.

Denis Streeter 10/7/11

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Incomplete

The highlight of my day
Was one transaction
That disabled four registers
Leaving me, the supervisor, the manager, and tech support
Scrambling for what to do
It turned out
That one receipt added on to her husky card
So she could get her 10% patronage refund
Was added incompletely
It was that incompletion
That shorted out four registers
That stressed countless employees
Held up customers
But soon got fixed
By tech support
In twenty years
Of cashiering
I've never seen
Four registers disabled by one transaction
Now I know
Just a little more
We are all
Incomplete.

Denis Streeter 10/4/11

Poetry last night

I read my piece "Shadow breakers" at poetry last night. It went over really well! Some thought it was really deep and others saw its humorous side. I love it when a piece affects different parts of each personality. It was a really strong night of poetry and music. The muse was definitely there. It was great to make acquaintances with old and new friends. I hope they return. Poetry is a unique expression of all life...what shapes us...through music, dance, work...any expression of ourselves. I felt that all taking shape last night.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Resonance

Today I got enough sleep and my back is much better, though now it's migrated to my right shoulder. Pain is like a human map. It likes to travel. I wonder if it's sucking down a daiquiri now... I'm at the library...photocopying my "Shadow breakers" piece. Think I'll read that at Monday night poetry. I'll let you know how it turns out. Turned in "Donnie Darko". I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it. I remember when I first saw it 23 years ago. It was intriguing to me then, though it didn't make much sense. I wanted to see it again...wondering why it has become a cult hit. I think I kind of understand why. It has a quirky mysterious element where the world is a dark place...and great late 1980's music lends it atmosphere. It also has a social 911 parallel darkness...where a large object hits the house of the protagonist. I like the psychological drama between his family and school friends...how it relates to the small community. I knew the ending, but it still surprised me. It's an uneven movie, but I still recommmend it. In a post 911 world, it resonates today. Time to leave the library. I'll see how "Shadow breakers" works reading aloud tonite.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Shadow breakers

Sunday was a good day of dancing with the Eclectic Cloggers in Issaquah. Fun performance and the comfort of being with good friends. Then I watched "Donnie Darko" and the tv series "Breaking Bad" at 10 PM. Perhaps the totality of this went into...

Shadow breakers

Until the rooms went into hiding
The dragons went out
One by one
Soon as fossil fuel
And the dinosaurs raged
Their reserves dried up
Wandering ghettoes
Full of unharnessed rage
Contradictions
And the people came
Filling their rage
With the rage to come
Full of unfulfillment
Expectations diminished
Contradictions
And the cattle prods stop
Human cattle from excremating
The excrement from their mouth
Full of wonder
How it got this way
And the ghettoes opened
Much the same way
With bee stings and ivy
Hope attached to the osprey
And the wings hovered
Not large enough to fly
And the sea anemones sank
The ocean floor drank
The litter box below
Until there was no more
Until it opened up
The tranquil peace dissolved
The war begun
In the middle of the desert
To present itself
To its oppressor
Just when the snake appeared
In the garden of Eden
Appearing in our lives
The worm holes of regret
The futures we see
But do not understand
Never seeing the whole picture
Just a part of the human experiment
What we call love
What we call hate
And all inbetween
Some balance beam
Some Jimmy Beam
Why whiskey you say
It's hard and it's easy
It knocks you off your shelf
To some unrefined self you think is real
And then you are full
And don't know what to do
But you keep trying don't you
You keep trying because there's nothing left
When you wonder
There is no God
Only drink
And your mind
You can control your mind 80% of the time
But what of that 20% of the time
What will you do with that
What will that do to you
I guess that's what friends and therapy are for
20%
It's just a number
How will you control that
When there is no one around
Not even your God
What will you do
To turn that 20% around
It's just a number
But you made it up
Turned it on
Gave it energy
Let it go
What will you do then
What will you do now
I'm just a prospector
What are you speculating
Your fears
Your powers
Your words
What they lack
How will you hold up
What is there
What is you
I feel your fears
They are baseless
You don't know
They are emotions taking over your rational mind
Fear is an emotion, but
Emotions are not fear
It's not some commutative mathematical equation
Your just becoming
More aware
What will that awareness
Become you

Denis Streeter 10/3/11

Lullaby

Slick as a raft and harder to follow
The hedgehogs kept at bay
Hoping the spiders would sleep them away
But the bobcats kept threatening the raptors
The rafters were sent overboard
Slithering away
Until the driftwood twigged out
What rafters were after
Capturing the twiggy goldmine
Some benevolent Arthur Rackham
Twiggy arms of protection
Pulling them ashore, awaiting their reward
That no one knew
That no one knew
Then oceaned again into the swirling waters
Time and again
Until they knew they knew what they did not know
Rocking away
Caressing arms touching again.

Denis Streeter 9/2/11