Skyboy Photos

09/27/2024

For September next year, a Taiwanese Mountain View calls to you, evoking the Zen temples scattered over this rugged landscape. And the poem? Written from my own awareness of how futile words become when trying to portray what cannot be said...

Time falls away in a soft rain
The sound of a distant bell
Half-heard dream sound remains
Diffuse in the watery air
I accompany the creaking beam
As it croaks its gentle complaint
Against the ancient standing post

The cool wind draws raindrops in
Raising goosebumps along the
Thin sticks of my arms
Green light suffuses the mist
I think, then stop
Once again the world happens
The concept of this poem dissolves
Downwind inside the hollow of its
Absurdly glorious failure

Order your copy now at skyboyphotos.com, click on the 'calendar' tab and there you'll find them. Discounts for multiple copies so you can gift your friends and relatives this season!

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09/26/2024

For August in The 2025 Sky and Nature Calendar, a scene from the heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains in California. The image inspired these words to accompany them:

The trees are everywhere aware
communing in their treelike way
arriving in their glowing sacred circles.
Like us they plunge themselves to ground
then with their steady arms offer land to sky.

Like us they bridge the threshold
‘tween the bones of earth, the soil
in which we seed and sow our bodies
and the living tissue of the air
which ignites the mystery of our fire.

Every moment burning through the
breath to bring the core alive
we form the world, imagine it
to be and Lo, behold, thus it is
in all its myriad of forms and wonders.

Go to https://buff.ly/3vFf3Ih and click on the "Calendars" Tab to order your copy!

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09/25/2024

For September next year, a Taiwanese Mountain View calls to you, evoking the Zen temples scattered over this rugged landscape. And the poem? Written from my own awareness of how futile words become when trying to portray what cannot be said...

Time falls away in a soft rain
The sound of a distant bell
Half-heard dream sound remains
Diffuse in the watery air
I accompany the creaking beam
As it croaks its gentle complaint
Against the ancient standing post

The cool wind draws raindrops in
Raising goosebumps along the
Thin sticks of my arms
Green light suffuses the mist
I think, then stop
Once again the world happens
The concept of this poem dissolves
Downwind inside the hollow of its
Absurdly glorious failure

Order your copy now at skyboyphotos.com, click on the 'calendar' tab and there you'll find them. Discounts for multiple copies so you can gift your friends and relatives this season!

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Our Nature photography is available in cards, gifts and prints especially for sky-gazers! Bringing the sky down to earth and bringing nature into the home.

09/24/2024

Announcing next year's almanac of the skies, The 2025 Sky and Nature Calendar is ready to order. Twelve all-new poems with photos from exotic locales like Taiwan, Ireland, California, and most surprisingly exotic of all: Hidden Springs in central Illinois!

It's the tenth anniversary of my calendars. To celebrate, I'm sending you a free calendar holder to go along with your purchase. Evocative of the Japanese Torii Gate, portal to the spiritual realm, it'll waft you up into your higher self!

Order yours now at https://buff.ly/3vFf3Ih !

07/04/2024

Happy Fourth of July, fellow citizens!

On this day celebrating independence and freedom, it occurs to me that not all the freedoms available to us are encoded in the founding documents of our nation. Therefore, I propose the following additions:

~ You have the freedom to respond to all persons with an open heart. You are free to respond to hostility with kindness; to fear and suspicion with an open hand; to bigotry and condemnation with your head held high.
~ You have the freedom to imagine a different world, one that you would feel comfortable living in. You have the freedom to work towards it.
~ You have the freedom to forgive. You are free to believe that your fellow humans are just as flawed as you are, and just as perfect.
~ You have the freedom to smile, to laugh, and to sing. You have the freedom to dance, move, stretch, to extend your miraculous body into the great container of the world.
~ You have the right to be exactly who you are. You have the right to find out who that is. You have the right to change, to become who you want to be, to metamorphose into a newer, different, and greater entity than you have been.
~ You have the right to be authentic. You have the right to be yourself, even when the great solid block of stone that is your spirit changes its shape with the passage of deep geologic time over and over and over again.
~ You have the freedom to fly away in your thoughts and feelings, to let your spirit float on the wind like a cottonwood seed and soar off into the wide, wild universe of which you are such an integral, necessary and constructive part.
~ You have the freedom to sweep the floors, dust the cobwebs, clear the clutter, and clean every corner of your safe haven and sanctuary, however humble or grand it may be. You have a right to fill that space with beauty, serenity, and grace. You have this freedom even if that abode exists only within your mind.
~ You have the right to feel everything that your body feels, as if your body were extended out to be as large as the whole universe, feeling itself.
~ You have the freedom to love. This is inalienable and absolute. It requires no permit, sanction, identity card, dispensation, nor any abstract document to exercise this right. And it grows stronger with exercise!
~ You are free to love those you love with all of your love, to love those you don’t much care for, to love even those you hate. They, too, have a story.
~ You have the freedom to love people who do you wrong as well as those who do right by you, and to love those who aren’t all that concerned with you one way or another, thank you. You are free to love people who are different from you, no matter how vastly they may be so. You have the right to love folks who you do not understand, and those who do not understand you. You have the right to love all creatures just because they exist, just because, like you, they found themselves miraculously born into this strange, vast, and unbelievably wondrous world.
~ You have the freedom to love yourself, for that is the heart of your ability to love all others.

Have a great and safe holiday and all the days to follow!

04/20/2024

It's okay to love your own work; in fact, I wonder if it isn't necessary. I never share a poem with the public until I like it myself.

So this is one I love, not just like...maybe it'll tickle your 'like' button too!

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Be Ye The Sand

Be ye the sand on the beach without thinking, without figuring out. Just tumble along with the jumble of particles, a small participle in that magnificent sentence as it rolls across the limitless tongue of the shore.

Be ye the black limbs of trees waving leafless in the wind, without asking questions, without needing answers. Just be the limbs. Be the trees.

Be ye the last leaf pulled to the sky, punching into the wildness, knocking back down to the sand and into the air in a mad unknowing of where you are heading or why. Simply obey what you are.

Be ye the winds from the far four corners of the wide rim of the earth. Be ye the cardinal points of the mystery. For the sand, the leaves, the sea, and the stars have a wisdom that guides your body as it flies to and fro in the wind.

Reason has such a short season, there is no time for this questioning. But time and time and time for the rest lives on in the greatest abundance.

Just be yourself as you are when you’re true to your God. Caress the face of your God as if the soft face of a child, however your God rolled you up.

Be ye bound to your singular self as you embody the greater soul, that soul that’s as big as the sea.
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From "Haiku, Shmaiku and Headin' Out to Sea"

https://buff.ly/3U1n0Rp

04/19/2024

A poem from "Haiku, Schmaiku" written while walking in the winter woods, the wind in my face, loving every gust and buffet of the gale. And dreaming...

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A Wild Night

A chill wind slips by razor-sharp, nicks my cheeks in passing.
The stars wheel in orbits ‘round the barren limbs of trees.

I am smitten with a yearning for adventure as it strops one side then another of some secret inner blade.

I love the leaves leaping from their limbs to climb upon the wind, dragging stars behind them as they scrape across the greying whale skin of sky!

I see my own two limbs rise upward, the fingers of my hands like lotus blossoms open, reaching out to fling wide the waiting gate of heaven.

The sweet and sour taste of all eternity is enfolded in the now,
this sacred moment in the infinite unrolling in my life.

I will no longer build my walls of castle, brick by weighty brick,
nor clutch the torment of my schedules or my needless reasons. I release them, for they’ve outlived their seasons.

Plumbing deep the heart’s true measure here within
the wilderness is heaven early dropped to earth.

Wanderlust for vast uncharted territories fills my soul with wildness. This shall be my prime and l***y purpose evermore.

Long-silent words cry out beneath the hollow dome of pewter
darkness and echo through the trees: relax your fist, release your hold on fate.

Let it work its will within your body. Let it lift you to the wind.
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All my books are discounted for the month of April, National Poetry Month! Go to https://buff.ly/3J0iIDK to pick up one, two, or all threeillustrated books of poetry and prose. Offer good until Mayday!

04/17/2024

Stop in at Blip Roasters tonight for some poetic experiences! I'll be featured along with other brilliant and heartfelt performers at 7:30 PM.

The $5 cover goes to support the Poetic Underground in their ongoing mission to go where no poet has gone before...or if they have, then to at least look at the place with deeper, more perceptive eyes. Seeing things from other angles. Using the imagination as a guide. Seeking truth wherever it be hiding. You know, making poetry!

Come down to 1301 Woodswether Rd, Kansas City, Missouri. It's like an oasis in the midst of an industrial district in the West Bottoms, where you'll find hugs, warmth and heartfelt words spoken with fire!

04/17/2024

Tomorrow night at the Poetic Underground! I'll be featuring along with four other poetic gods and goddesses...you won't want to miss this. Come by at 7:30 PM to Blip Roasters at 1301 Woodswether Rd, Kansas City, Missouri, and you won't!. It's like an oasis in an industrial desert in the West Bottoms...stop in, be welcomed with hugs and warmth, and enjoy the fun!

04/16/2024

If you haven't read poetry by Mary Oliver, it's impossible to describe the peace and wonder she inspires. If you have, it's unnecessary.

I've written two poems in her honor, and this is one, from "Haiku, Schmaiku and Headin' Out to Sea."

And yes, you're very astute, it's a haiku!

________________

Old Poets

Old poets never die
They float off astonished by
The taste of the sky
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Find the book and more at https://buff.ly/3J0iIDK at a discount for the month of April!

04/13/2024

I'm among the stalwart poets featured next Wednesday at the Poetic Underground. I'm very excited. the theme is "Health is Wealth" and I've written a piece especially for the event, which I'll be performing along with some other works. I'm honored to be alongside some of these other artists in a place they call "a brave space." Hope I don't chicken out.
Nah.
I hope you can make it! The fun starts at 7:30 PM. Blip Roasters is at 1301 Woodswether Rd, Kansas City, MO. It's like an oasis in an otherwise industrial district in the West Bottoms...once you get there you will be welcomed with hugs and warmth!

04/08/2024

A poem from "Haiku, Schmaiku and Headin' Out to Sea" that is the reason for the last part of the title...a poem which insisted it had accompanying music! I went with its wish.

Here's a video I made along the California coast of the now-song...

https://buff.ly/3TQjhou