The poem of my life

The poem of my life has repeating patterns
and phrases; like Homer's "Rosy-fingered Dawn
stretched her hands across the Easten sky"
instead of saying "the next morning" or
"The man of constant sorrows, the unluckiest man alive"
instead of saying "Odysseus, his own worst enemy."

The repeating cycles turn the world peaceful
peach and orange then soft twilight;
Tonight, take out the trash.
Soon the gods will place the spell of sleep
on the man of constant sorrows, the unluckiest man alive.
Then rosy-fingered dawn will spread her hands across the Eastern sky.

Perhaps tomorrow he will find his way.

The beat poem of my life is accompanied
by a bongo - didgeridoo musical duo.
The bongo speeds or slows; the emotional flow.
The breath of the didgeridoo drones in and out,
organic, automated. The beat poem of my life has a dance.
It is the spiraling dance of the Spring Planting Kachinas
at sunset and moon rise, spiraling in toward the pure center
and out again into community. Generous, blessed to be a blessing;
blessings come over us in waves, each made of many drops.
Fractal; like the days broken
into hours, minutes, seconds, moments, experiences.
The experiences dance all day.
Kachinas along the edge of the mandelbrot of chaos-free sleep
beat with my pulse breath with my lungs,
dance life into being along the event horizon
below which I will now take my poem and go.

The dance of my life tells its story with hands,
Strong big hands, supporting the weak
Or clenched into angry fists.
Powerful hands to tell a powerful story.
Not the sensual hands of a wahine,
My life hula is with warrior's hands
Dancing the E O E Hokule'a.
Shouting the legend with pride.
Ka Huaka'i O Kaha'i, our ancestor,
followed the path of the rainbow;
navigated without compass or map,
used the patterns in the waves
right where he was at that moment,
ordered his men to paddle hard to the left or right
until the shore birds and sound of waves
roused them to jump up and shout
Hawaii Hawaii !!!
Dancing in triumph, bare-footed on the deck.

The tide has changed.
Paradise must be near.

The professor who works the strings
of my life prefers outrageous coincidence
to slapstick comedy. I dance the role of
Mr. Punch; Puchinella, the Trickster.
I look to my precedent Loki
I salute my antecedent Bart,
framed by a nonstandard family, nonstandard situations
demanding that I must out of sheer audacity defeat
Alligators, Demons, and the Devil himself.
Huzzah Huzzah! What? no applause?

I admit the show of my life
lacks in entertainment value,
since Judy got real, cut her strings
and found freedom.

The Trader's Village of my life
resembles the open-air markets of the world,
bustling with colors and flavors and smells.
Everything's negotiable. Not everything's legal.

The merchants are the people; The people are merchants
Goods and capital exchanged as purlioned food
between prisoners of war who bribe corrupt guards with half.
The Market of my life is a bargan.

I flirt with happy children and gentle grandmothers,
in the Universal Grandparent Smile Language.
Amazing luck or holy blessing, I can't know which
brings me to a table spread with more than I need,
all without price.

It's about the love, not the cost,
At the Trader's Village of my life.

The punctuation of my life
inserts commas into memories
where exclamation points were
and uses question marks for declaratives.
The grammar of my life morphs
into free verse without capitals
or sentences. Important and trivial
in a row all alike (emphasis mine).
The essay of my life had
no proof-reader, no draft copy,
typos stand as written for all to see
and ponder patterns in the chaos.
The book of my life doesn't match
Table of Contents or Appendix.
Footnotes are ignored and the
Bibliography was completely faked.

The traffic of my life runs yellows,
stalls in metered on-ramps,
ignores no parking signs,
swerves around speed bumps
without power steering.
The route of my life is
unpaved too-fast counter-steer roads
heading up over the old pass,
no guard-rails on the switchbacks
skimming the tops of the washboard.
The old pickup of my life
runs a solid slant six
with a heavy-duty clutch,
granny gear transmission,
step-sides and a wooden bed.
Too hot? open a window
Too cold? there's a flap to let in heat.
Too bouncy? hang on to the strap
We're not stopping until we get there.