Advancing in My Receding

Cast your lines out

upon the turbulent waters;


then they splash and widen;


watch the rounded ripple of worded motion,


form waving

back

to you


lapping at your toed

self

that temporary ego


and out to others,


then fading...



Do you ‘sea fair’?





-Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in The Write Room,
also in the published poetry
collection, Psalms, Yawps, and Howls



The Ocean of Light overcomes the ocean of darkness.


From SeaQuaker, a writing website of Daniel Eugene Wilcox a poet and fiction writer:

Poetry is creative play in the imagination--
a way of seeing, a way of feeling, a way of being; re-envisioning our perception,
to experience images and moods and truths via the deep structure of far-reaching words. 

Travel within toward the truth and find meaning in this cacophony called Life.

Three collections of Daniel's published poetry are in print--
Dark Energy,
Psalms, Yawps, and Howls,
and selah river.

Browse through his poems, short stories, one speculative novel
and his philosophical musings to see the world, life, and the cosmos from a different perspective.

Daniel earned his degree in Creative Writing from Cal State University, Long Beach. He is a former activist, American and world literature teacher, roving wanderer and explorer--
from Montana to the Middle East, casting lines out upon the turbulent waters and far shores of this troubled world. 

Journey through the wide swim of human consciousness and its many tributaries. 
Yes, travel rivers of the world
and rivers of the soul
and rivers of the mind. 

Check out a haiku, low-cool short poem on the Central California's damp gloom summer at vox poetica:
http://voxpoetica.com/dripping-rain-drizzles/

Reflect on the loss of loved ones and the nature of being human and death--
"Poem for My Dad " and "Deaf to Death" at Lightwaveseeker:
http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com/2015/12/personal-two-poems-for-my-dad.html

Consider  mirror images in reverse of how we can face Life, dealing with trials, tragedies, and difficulties--"bidingTimeabiding"
http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/2015/12/daniel-wilcox-three-poems.html

Delve into the joy of romance in "Moon River" published at Poetry Pacific.
http://poetrypacific.blogspot.com/2015/02/2-poems-by-daniel-wilcox.html
_
Encounter the world of Afghanistan in the poem "The Road to Elsewhere"
at Fish Food Magazine.
http://www.fishfoodmagazine.com/poetry/2014/11/22/the-road-to-elsewhere

Need a good laugh in the midst of so much current human tragedy and political chaos?
Try "The Pullout Coyote"
my true but funny poetic story of our encounter
with a wild critter in Yosemite last year.
http://voxpoetica.com/pull-out-coyote/

Experience the speculative alternate history and future narrative of 3 alienologists who travel from across the galaxy to study Earth and its humans, but instead get caught up in alien
joys, trials, and tribulations--
from the Oregon Trail and the  American War Between the States to the Great Depression
and the future high-tech of 2074.
Experience The Feeling of the Earth.
Available now in Kindle e-book or paperback at Amazon, Barnes & Noble,
local book stores, and libraries across the United States.

And get ready for 2 more books coming your way late in 2017, the 4th collection of Daniel's published poetry, Last Things,
and a tense present-day suspense thriller, An Eye for the Beheading.

Our perceptions so decisively affect how we think and make our ethical choices.
Deal with the moving film over your eyes. 
It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a poem...
http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/2015/07/daniel-wilcox-three-poems.html

Growing older, starting to consider retirement, caring for your elderly loved ones, contemplating the wonder
of our brief lives?

Then head north to Canada's Poetry Pacific Magazine and ruminate on the poem "Retreaded."  
http://poetrypacific.blogspot.com/2013/08/1-poem-by-daniel-wilcox.html

Find a way to bring goodness out of your problems and trials and tragedies. Read "Nail Holes" at Enhance Literary Magazine.
http://enhancemag.onimpression.com/post/54731422579/the-amazing-enhance-no-12

Ready for the joy of romantic love. Read "Roll Ever Columbia" and "Northeast Night" at cavalcadeofstars. 
https://cavalcadeofstars.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/daniel-wilcox-debuts/

Hold hands again! Check out "two hands" a romancing of romance at vox poetica. Share the lyric with your sweetheart. 
http://voxpoetica.com/two-hands/

Looking for  insightful poems on life, social issues, and history:
"The Last Libation,
" Midnight Voyager,"
" The Revolution,"
and "Ah, Bird Poop Van."

What a travail is politics and nationalism!
Look at Palestine versus Israel, Afghanistan versus the U.N., Syria and Russia versus the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and 30 or more Islamic jihadists groups.etc. Read of the tragic senseless nature of war at The Write Room:
"After the Battle" 
http://thewritemag.com/poetry/after-the-battle/

Doesn't religion sometimes want to make you gag? 

When natural disasters slaughter thousands of humans, and destroy, many Christian and Muslim leaders claim it is the "finger of God!"

Several years ago a major Christian leader claimed that 90 tornadoes which slaughtered humans were commanded by God,
that the winds were from Jesus!!!
Consider a different perspective:
"Let's Do the 'Twister'"
http://newversenews.blogspot.com/2012/03/lets-do-twister.html

Weep for the innocent in "Caught in the Act in Iraq."
Or be shocked into action by his Christmas poem, "To Whom It Does Not Concern," on the website, protestpoems.org and a reflection on time and history in "Of Things Past and Present" at Static Movement. Daniel has a deep passion for peacemaking, ethics, and human rights.

Read other poems of ethics and passion by Daniel Wilcox
at these fine magazines:
vox poetica, Poetry Pacific, Contemporary American Voices, Dead Snakes, Camel Saloon, Ascent Aspirations, Mad Swirl,  Knot Middle Eastern Literary Journal,  Mouse Tales Press,  The Paradise Review,  Ancient Paths Literary Magazine, The Mindful Review, Greensilk Journal, vox poetica, Front Porch Review, Unlikely Stories, Eunoia Review, Enhance Literary and Art Magazine, hotmetalpress.net, Bigger Stones, Decades Review, Lyrical Passion Poetry, Widowmoon Press, amphibi.us, Midwest Literary Magazine, The New Verse News,
Poetry Super Highway, Three Line Poetry, Media Virus Magazine, Western Friend Magazine, A Handful of Stones, Widowmoon Press, Liturgical Credo, Yes, Poetry, Four and Twenty, Gloom Cupboard, The Clockwise Cat, Rubber Lemon, The Medulla Review, Structo, vox poetica, Willows Wept Review,  Haiku Journal, Lyrical Passion Poetry, Moria,, The Centrifulgal Eye,, Lunarosity,, Hanging Moss Journal, The New Verse News,, ocean diamond,, The Writer's Eye, Mad Swirl, Abandoned Towers, The Scruffy Dog Review, Oak Bend Review, Crossing Rivers Into Twilight, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Cherry Blossom Review,, The Houston Literary Review,, Lucid Rhythms, Word Riot,
and
Identity Theory,, Halfway Down the Stairs,, Right Hand Pointing, Frame Lines, The  Externalist,,The Driftwood Review,, Flutter Poetry Journal,, Frostwriting,, Words-Myth, Ink Sweat & Tears, Erbacce Print Journal, Sentinel Poetry Online, The November 3rd Club, Word Catalyst, the poetry warrior, Mississippi Crow Magazine,, The Cerebral Catalyst, Anthrozine, Ink, Sweat, & Tears, Stylus Poetry Journal, Idlewheel Literary Friction, The Indite Circle, The Rogue Poetry Journal, The WriteSideUp, La Fenetre International Literary Magazine, The Other Side Magazine,  The Bicycle Review, A Handful of Stones, The Copperfield Review, Unfettered Verse,  Leaf Garden, Calliope Nerve, Static Movement, Counterexample Poetics,  outwardlink.net, protestpoems.org, Writer's Ink, The Recusant, Full of Crow, The Shine Journal, Danse Macabre, Clutching at Straws, etc.

Daniel resides on the central coast of California with his wife and former homeless feline, Smoke. Besides creative writing, he reads a lot, shoots photography, and finds time to swim.

He's an old backpacker who in the past hiked up the two tallest peaks in Arizona and California, (to the top of Mount Whitney in the Sierra Nevadas), and down into the bottom of the Grand Canyon on many of its South Rim trails the old Bass Trail is the best). But now he hikes into his computer room each day
in the fall of his years:-).

Well, it's not quite that bad; Daniel has hiked with his wife in the wild red rock country of the Southwest, in Florida, Maine, Kauai, up in Oregon, and in Olympia National Park in Washington State.

He ages but doesn't petrify, because he takes walks with his wife on the Central Coast, and swims lots of laps.

*Reference of the Site Logo:

I saw, also, that there was an ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In that also, I saw the infinite love of God, and I had great openings...
George Fox

Also, check out Daniel's newer writing websites at  http://www.selahriver.com/ 
http://buddingzin.weebly.com/,
http://lastthings.weebly.com/,
http://www.psalmsyawpshowls.com,
and a bit of jabbwocky whimsy at http://planktonpelican.weebly.com/

​Experience a few of his poems and stories 
at Lightwaveseeker:  http://lightwaveseeker.weebly.com/


In the Light,

Daniel Eugene Wilcox

In Memory of My Father

My father died 2 years ago, 3 days after his 90th birthday.
So he did get to live a long, fairly positive life.

And during the last year--despite many dangerous and damaging illnesses--
my normally serious dad suddenly gained a funny sense of the absurd,
even throwing out a few puns like his son.

In memory of him, I am posting this true story he and my mother experienced.
I wrote down their narrative of an unusual experience
in 3 million-plus Orange County, California.

It's like nature brought back to my aged father his early experiences
on the edge of Orland in northern California
and then

growing up on a small farm in southeastern Nebraska
at the start of the Great Depression.

From my Father's point of view:


The Possibility of the Suburbs

Clearing out our rags and boxes
In the cluttered corner of our
Potted-plant patio on Edinger,
I jumped; something moved.

Eyeballing a dark, pudgy furness,
I exclamation-pointed
To my ‘utterly’ surprised mate.
Oh the possibilities...

A large possum mothering
Her 4 little infants scrunched
Under our old Persian rug
By the many green succulents.

My laughing wife handed me
Our long-poled ‘litter’ picker.
I snatched each scrawny brown tot
Up by the neck and delivered it

Into the aluminum trash dumpster
And then up-zooed their mother
By grabbing her long ratty tail.
Oh the possibilities...

We pulled a large board on the bin
And later drove our wild ones
Over to a drainage ditch where
Those runts climbed on their mother’s back

And disappeared into dense brush
In the crowded midst of 3 million
Humans twilight-zoned with another
Odd question for their creator:

How was it possible for us
Oldsters to hike countless wild trails
In wild Yellowstone Park last year
Oh the possibilities...

Through forests and rushing rivers
Yet never see one such critter?
This sidekick of them all,
With wily fellow travelers--

Oh the ‘possumbility’ of nature!


-Daniel Wilcox
First pub. in Abandoned Towers
in different form


In the Light-hearted memory of my father,

Daniel Wilcox

Love and Loss and Lasting

A Song of Songs Into Olding


Intense clangor—the joyous movement

of rod and belle
of the brash and the subtle

caroled with rubied passion,
they ring with joy their supple skin.

Fertile in consummation, in oneness

these two-to-one
jewel their future

days with melodic movement.

Appealing with rings that couple gold,
One circle—
unending,
endless,
eternal,

They spangle their handed time with madrigals.

The chiming lyric of the sapphire
adorns their sensuous
moments.

Embellishments of gemmed time

lay close

jeweled bare on their skin,
on circular strands


Down

the

years


Turning irritants, trials, and struggles

Into pure spheres
of visioned music,

Shimmering pearls of perseverance

(Unlike the coldness
of the bland flatness,

the flaked shale
of many a marriage's mediocrity).

He and she chime in their aging,

wrinkled skin, touched creases,
caressed emeralds of cherishing,

lasting into the soft opalness

of Olding, their souls flow
warm with mellifluous serenity.

Precious
the seasoned-round

romancing,

the ringing, rubied

Song of songs.



—Daniel Wilcox

First published in Word Catalyst Magazine

--



The Essence of Software


Why is the metal-cased T.V.
fine, structurally sound,

but my loving wife of 60 years

Slowly...

dies?

What repair man can I call
to have her tinkered with

so her inside will remain vibrant and joyous—

that we might share another year together

in our odyssey

through this hard land?

Why isn't there a warranty for her?

"Guaranteed, Call 1-700, Zenith Lasts!"

Already I picture the scene,
the day coming soon like a tsunami

that will roar through our lives

and

drown us all.

I will stand

Lone

without
an umbrella

in the soft, vicious rain

and stare

down

at the immaculate metal coffin

that will endure for centuries—stainless steel, you know—while

my wife

's corny word play
(like the time she pretended
a hot dog was a cigar)

will be gone.

How obscene...the coffin will gleam with color--

the little blue angels

in the panels and the chrome handles—long lasting like the T.V.

But
my wife will not

endure,

not even appear in syndication.

And the only reruns
will be in my head

until my own show
is cancelled.

The T.V. will remain—

Well, maybe not...

It too will wear out
and be dumped

into some landfill

to corrode and rust
to oblivion.


Is there Netflix for humans?



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in La Fenetre, France

--

Their Beekeeper's Moon



Their beekeeper’s moon lasted only several phases

of love’s eternal sphere;

too quickly the warm honey of fired passion,
the illumined glow...

—all those amorous-vesseled words

emptied,

no wined days
or champagne-giddy nights

only

pain-flask-jarring
loss;


then

broken with dishearten
their lacerated lives

scattered into

loose shards,
glass-chasmed


and w i d e n e d---

a barren landfill
of middle years,

their debris-ed evenings...


his wandering looks,

her sidetracked eyes,

their mangled conversation


meant
seemingly
no keeper's hope remained. No communion...

However

graciously in elder-oaked age,


old scars healed and new buds came,
a fresh phase of shine

shone in their faces,

the nectared honey of freely choosing

chosen love
—their lasting
passion.



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in the The Greensilk Journal


--


Ever After


Waking up close to you,
Your ‘presence’ covered in our morning’s lips caress

Like the shimmering, luminous night's seal to a sleeping princess,
We’re warm, luscious honeycombed lovers,

Deeply treasured in life-long mellifluous romance
Truly our cherished delicious passion,

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake
And the stars shine in our room
Through time to time to time

Cherishing
Our heart-welling felt vow

Spectrumed rainbow of our arrowed heart,
Protecting our intertwined soul and body
Not tempted, nor wayward

But delivered from every
Disloyal fragmented moment.

For an eternal now choosing
True love so royal streamed

From time to time to time,
Through the first falling sky-up

On mount passion's verdant peak
High above the desert of briefness,

We begin newly blessed, giving life;

Chorus
And the moonlight on the water,
Moon shimmering on the lake,
And the stars shine in our room
From time to time to time

With the snapping of the corked top
And the delicious splash

Of champagne on a sun-covered table,
And the burgundy bottle never empties
And our two communing glasses shine,

In the shimmering, luminous union
And the moon lights our room

And the stars’ shine on the lake
On our wedding night over and over and over,

You all in white lace
Warm in my embrace
And ever after.



By Daniel Wilcox

First published, different form
in The Shine Journal,
and in selah river





In the Light of commitment, kiss your true love,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #2: Receding for God

Once a career, but twice in diapers, however the second time around often leads down to dementia and always to demise, where we humans lose all our learning and skills and achievement so diligently accomplished. Gone with the leaving...barren winter approaching, white and none.

But why? All that work gone and us receding physically, and worst of all mentally…So despairing like Poe spoke of in his hauntingly powerful meditation on loss and death.*

What a tragic losing, often, pathetic, indeed absurd lessening…
Again, for what purpose?

There seems none. Over 2,500 years ago, Qoheleth, (“Gatherer”) in the pessimistic Jewish book of Ecclesiastes (“Qoheleth”) concluded, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”, “Vapor of vapor, all is vapor” (a more literal translation of the Hebrew). Sometimes this seems more accurate than the hopefulness of Paul’s Philippians’’ “Rejoice always.”

In the end, Life will leave us breathless...all our accomplishments a transient vapor.

Without serious doubt this is why biblical faith and vision brings hope to many of us in the midst of this life’s worst, when Jesus speaks of God’s everlasting love for all of us, every single human, every last one, and that we can have trust in God’s promise to bring us into glory. Revelation 21; 3-4 “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

But the glorious future isn't now. This week I asked my wife about her great grandparents. She knew nothing of them. Not a single story, not a memorable moment, nothing, gone like a vapor vanished in the past. Same for my relatives. Gone with the wind, with the morning's vapor, with the transient breath.*

True, we do have a genealogy book in the garage stacks of her father’s family going back hundreds of years, but all that’s left in that volume here in this present now are the squiggles of meaningless names covering many pages—begetting/begatting one to boredom.

Gone forever (except in the Mind of God) are their vivid stories, their unique contributions, deep inner thoughts and special reflections, their fun times, and shared moments, those time of communion with loved ones and God.

So what of Life in these the olden years (nothing golden there—unless its fools’ gold)? And for what purpose does God have us here when we seem good for nothing, unable to accomplish the most basic of our own needs, let alone achieve new goals? And all past accomplishments a dissipated vapor?

We are created in God’s image but with the onset of dementia, where is that beauty of form and creativity and achievement any longer?

For everyone time lessens, and we recede.

Every several days when I pass down the line/hall in the convalescent home (isn’t that an irony of words?), there lined down against the wall in wheelchairs sit hunched over old codgers* and old maids with slack jaws and vacant eyes. I say, “Hi” and wave but most don’t register or respond. They’re physically present but absent. No one home:-(

Are they immersed in memories or only vegetating like shriveled potatoes, long past their prime in the musty cellar of life?

But then one dumpy lady—looking a little like sallow clay in her countenance--suddenly brightens, her whole face going aglow and responds, “Hello.”

And my own dark mood lightens/brightens. She’s brought hope, showing how even in her final receding, she can still—however small and brief—-bring help to another passing her way, a momentary communion. "Where 2 or 3 are gathered..."*

And maybe that’s in the last analysis, the one hope we can rejoice in no matter how hard our lot in life, no matter how far down toward the last negation we fail, there is the spiritual communion of a fleeting moment, the beauty of a vapor, however brief.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

--


*A Dream within a Dream

by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-

How few! Yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!

O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! Can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?


* Codger
The origin of codger seems to lie in the complex links between cadger and codger (not as a contraction of 'coffin-dodger', as one of my more inventive correspondents has suggested). In some parts of England the two words were used interchangeably, whereas in other regions they were separate words, one meaning 'beggar' and the other 'eccentric/grotesque fellow'. The latter meaning is the one used in an early example of 'old codger', David Garrick's farce Bon Ton, 1775: "My Lord's servants call you an old out-of-fashion'd Codger."

Men who had fallen on hard times and had resorted to any means possible to keep body and soul together were often those who were too old to find work. A cadger was likely to be a grizzled character wanting to borrow or steal from you; a codger was a peculiar and unfashionable chap, and both were likely to be old. 'Old codger' is most likely to be the linguistic merging of all those images.
David Garrick's farce Bon Ton, 1775: "My Lord's servants call you an old out-of-fashion'd Codger."
Urban Dictionary

*Nothing like throwing a heavy-handed allusion into the mix;-)

*“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” ESV