Friday, February 3, 2012

a life...

a life…

She is small

delicate

full of love

yet

I lose my patience

sometimes

when she cries

loudly -

screams

the top of her lungs

late into the night

yet

I understand

as an infant

she speaks in screams

whimpers and cries

whispers and smiles

and toothless grins

for what she needs

must have –

at that moment.

She grips onto my large

fingers

yet

I am still

sometimes

impatient with her.

As a father

I have grown up

two children already

I have climbed that

glorious mountaintop

seen the other side

and I know the beauty

of sixteen

I know

when I blink my eyes

it will be upon us

both of us

ready or not.

yet

there are moments

deep in the night

when it is

she and me

Marea McKenzie

and her father

alone in the dark

her angel face on

drinking the nectar

of the gods

when it is perfectly clear

that this is

the only child

in the world

and she is ours

to learn from

to grow up

to make a friend

to love

to hold close to our hearts.

I am impatient

sometimes

but yet

I love her deeply

she came to me

and us

from some other universe

a bathroom

a kitchen

I do not know

a home away

from my home

a place of some

sadness I imagine

into this place

of your great joy

great love

and our extraordinary love

for one another.

This our Rose

is a bud of life

a ray of light

for the earth

a drop of rain

a seed planted

for hope

and some understanding

I have yet to grasp completely

beyond pure love.

Doug Claybourne

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Under the stars....

I stepped out

into a freezing night

to see the big dipper falling -

laying low in the January heavens.

I breath in – surveying

the night thru naked tree limbs – as my life

taking in the grand array.

I discover Orion’s belt, my old friend

Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka

The Three Marys some say and

our guide to the north looks on.

Every star is visible it seems

on this clear night

dancing in their own constellations

in celebration of this day.

My breath blows out

the cold candles of wonder, still

after all these years

of looking up –

into this deep mysterious sky.

Curious, how insignificant

one life might be,

yet for some choice made

or is it perhaps just chance

that takes place within

this realm of light -

the domain of these observing old stars.

Orion is 800 light years away

from our earth – yet seconds

away from this page.

I stepped out into this freezing night

where light travels

186,000 miles per second

from light years away

to celebrate – this insignificant,

yet joyful birthday.

Doug Claybourne

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Tweet Poetry Collection 2011 and Beginning 2012

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Wednesday, November 16, 2011

After making love…

After making love

we are quiet,

breathless and exhausted

yet somehow we are born again

refreshed and reminded

of our first kiss.

our first touch,

our first hot embrace

that transported us naked

reaching out into this wild,

fleeting lifelong adventure.

After making love,

we are moist and dripping,

we are sometimes sweating profusely,

our hearts racing and yet

we are calmed

as we lay side by side

trembling with satisfaction

for a few thoughtful moments

before you run,

tattoo glaring and sexy

on your bare ass to the shower

through the candle light.

After making love

we breathe in deep breaths

in a sighing of understanding

that these two bodies in the universe

are still bound by the same unseen forces

the same inexplicable laws of quantum mechanics

governing planets moving in vast space

we are atoms and molecules of energy

finding one another among quarks, waves

and mathematical formulations -

yet, we have hearts, far more complex than

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle

and we revel in their beauty

their mystery and their ultimate magic.

After making love

we are mountains,

we are rivers

we are cold streams

and we flow together –

always meeting at the same place

always meeting at the wide sea.

Mourning…

What is mourning

if it is not a kind of death

before death – a knowing.

And you say,

what do I know.

I know loneliness

without my children

two I have loved – half a life

which seems a lifetime – of years

in words not spoken.

Being heartbroken

by silence

this is mourning –

by day

by night

by candlelight

a loss is a loss

by death

or in life.

The loss of love

the lack of sweet kisses.

This is what mourning

truly looks like

even tears

that are wiped away

so friends do not see

the truth of it.

Doug Claybourne – inspired by “A Woodsplitter's Meditation” by Sam Hamill – from his book, “Almost Paradise”

Love is…

a single rose – or

the slender glass

cylinder

holding it - or

the tiny yellow orange buds

of miniature roses standing

side by side - now

three aging flowers

cut from our front yard

held in that same three inch

diameter perfectly round

eight inch container.

It soars

proud

clear

resilient

radiant

in the brilliant

morning light

of this crisp fall day

in Brooklyn.

Love is -

seeing it

smelling it

knowing it

moment by moment
breathing it in

holding on to the vision

as long as you can

like a child

gripping a special toy – a bear, a blanket.

Love is -

recognizing that joy

as we walk down the long tunnel

of understanding nothing.

Doug Claybourne aka J.E. Dorsey – for Sam Hamill

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Father and son...

We are the same

you and me

we come from the same blood

although –

we fought in different wars

we pulled the same trigger

looked through the same sights

we loved different women

laughed,

drank cheap wine

and hot beer

we cried,

we dreamed

and came to blows

in the backyard

ending up,

bloody with friends.

We are the same

you and me

leading drunken brawls in bars,

found in passionate embraces with female strangers,

yet – we are the same

you and me

we are father and son.

Today,

you lay struggling to live,

tubed

taped

wired

wrapped

blanketed

heavily drugged

but loved

and cared for

flushed with

Vancomycin and

Mycostatin

quieted by

Morphine or

Acetaminophen

when necessary.

And we sit attending

listening

helplessly sometimes

to the painful moaning,
brothers and sisters

hands on your arthritic hands,

or on your forehead

holding

cold wash clothes

hearing the sounds

trying to be words

coming from your mouth.

We can only soothe

with ice chips

or wet wash clothes

as when we were sick as

children, laid upon our own faces.

Father, we are the same

you and me

and I weep

for the loss

of the body

that carries your spirit

alive,

strong

and wiling

yet besieged to discover a

suitable place to sing again.

Yes, we are the same

you and me

father and son

joined by love,

sperm and egg

attached by birth and always death

children and grandchildren

the ever revolving

merry-go-round of life.

It began when

a man and woman

connected and

joined

attracted in some

magnetic and magic

moment that

changes one another’s history –

creates a life

and a certain genius…

Einstein

Neruda

Freud

Hemingway

Picasso

Frost

Michelangelo

Dante

Gandhi

Mother Teresa

We are the same

you and me

father and son

joined by love

and a grand mystery.

Doug Claybourne – for Wayne Claybourne – 11.01.11 In hospital in Oklahoma