selah river: Poems of reflection, remembrance, transcendence

"I've known rivers...my soul has grown deep like the rivers."* Langston Hughes

Yes, travel rivers of the world
and rivers of the soul
and rivers of the mind.

Selah.


Presence transcends

Drowned in family tragedy, despairing, distraught--
that morning earlier;
thus down encumbered,
he came to Quaker meeting, but not speaking
of his family’s severe circumstance, kept hidden;

But in the midst
of open expectant communion, Transcendent Light
shown forth in a stranger’s sudden
a cappella spiritual chorus--
a deep songing deepening within;
intense meaning lifted us gathered in communion--
vivid encouraging Hope;

That sacred chorus didn’t take away our shattered glass
lives, nor end many distraught
circumstances and tragedies--
but
Oh, what Hope fulled within.

--Dan Wilcox


a beachcomber of Beauty

a why-ing kid
up
with go-vision eyes stretching and out,
rambling
meandering rocky-rubble farm roads
and roaming over creeks, through timber strands,
brief forest, and out across pasture lands--

I discovered beautiful bits and lumps that matter
--pebbles, stones, and rocks
(especially when wet)
and odd ugly ones, to boot

on fun nature hikes
wide-eyed adventures--
outside of our minor village
in 50’s southeast Nebraska;

Put those bright objects, small hunks, in my pockets
where they lay heavy
or in my overloaded baggish hands,
carrying them home,
my free treasures of early/pre-youth

enlarging my throng of wonder
in my pine-walled basement room--
Yes, I became a rock-mongrel mutt;

And later found others, mostly bits of minerals,
my boyhood keepers
in the Black Hills, Rockies, Sierras,
and a small chunk of copper ore
from an open pit mine in Bisbee, Arizona,

and a few parched white bones from
a long-ago bison jump
near Lame Dear, Montana.

I became a boarder of pebbles, quartzes, feldspars, agates,
granite bits, and mica, sea-glass, iron pirate,
and who-know unknowns,
and fascinating shells and other sea life from 3 coasts--

a life-long beachcomber of minor Beauty,
a voyager through this washed-up-n-down of life,
Adrift explorer, searcher, curious wanderer.

But now in receding elder age, mutated
by a stroke of bad luck,
I hesitently hobble about with a rolling walker alone
along Pismo sand dunes and Morro Rock shores
still searching, seeking for more special riff-raff,
to add to my ‘treasured things,’
our rooms’ shelves;

Here they still lay waiting
inert for another
I/It encounter...

Oh, the aesthetic depth of minor things,
bits that matter which sometime
transcend
into present
WONDER!

Yes, objects of beauty that exist in Deep Time...

In not too many years,
I will leave them behind;
and those long-enduring things will
exist others of the future.

And this long rumination of my life-long collections
Reminds me of a pebbled thought of beauty for present living--

We humans get washed up
on this shore of existence,
surrounded and crowded

by things and circumstances
we didn’t choose--

We all get roughed down and polished by adversity…

But the wonder of our human brain’s neural plasticity--
is we all get to choose
how we respond to life’s circumstances,
harsh trials, and horrific tragedies--

Yes, until our death, we get to create anew
Each moment,
If only briefly
--
Conclusion:
What has washed up on your shore today?
What beautiful pebbled moment of wonder?
Or what irritant, ache, troubling circumstance, or tragedy
has gotten lodged in your
oyster mind and heart?

What can you do to turn this troubled moment into a precious
gem/pebble/stone/agate?

-Dan Wilcox


Awake at dawn

upending my camping mug
for a drink,
at dawn,
but no water slurp;
almost empty--

except for a gray web’s net
rim to rim;
below, a dark spider
silent dwelling
--


Retreaded, not yet board and carded

I’m retreaded but road-tired,
Rolling across cantankerous land
Though, thank heavens—knock around
On pavement
And redwood,
Not yet sent off to a ‘board and card’ mansion,
Rehearsing...

You know where decks and bingo
“Was a dog…” chips or
Markers
Define the tokened measures of your/our life--

Or where, too
Reclining and breathing entertain you/us.

Or tipped-wobbly with 4-wheels and unfeeling-ed feet
I walker along the wet sand at Morro Strand beach
Staggering in wonder at this breathtaking coast...
Here
Until my brief spark of awed experience embers out

Gone...

Yet
Reality Ultimately
Transcendent
--


Meditation on Shimmering Palms

On more days and nights, an invalid,
In pain and loss, I often just want to go...
Unconscious;
But then, again, I stare out
To the wind and sun
From our upstairs
Window;

There tower above, 2 lone palms
In sight from my weak haven,
Swaying in that blue expanse
In a lively coastal wind,
Their mop-tops of slender fronds
Shimmering
Like flashing magnesium flares
From brilliant reflecting
Sunshine.

Those two undulating sentinels dance
over/above my fading consciousness,
Ailing awareness--
A duo/two unconscious guards,
While I lay here filled with sacred
Remembrance, mindful
Of my former festive living,
Becoming, and doing….

Yes, the wonder of being a human primate
Living, but finite, so brief, and this
Gift, this Present
Shimmering--
Then we’re gone.

-Dan Wilcox,
--

FLOATERS--a poetic reflection on autumn and life

I’m spent to despair,
For lost hope yearning,
Tried for years to rescue others
Caught in tangled news hours
Of hellish hate, intolerance, despair,

Wrong right-leftist spinners,
Those creedalists and secularists
Both deniers of the morally real--
Their abyss of modern sheol winter
Stop!
Abandon this somber cellared lament!

Instead,
My sweetheart suggests, Let’s visit
A coastal winery,
Say, I do,
We do.

Driving along a winding river valley,
We arrive, expectant,
Hoping for respite;
Then, listening to soft music,
Sipping small glasses of moscato and merlot

Enjoying a glad lackadaisical day,
Mellow and casual,
Light of heart,
Carefree, contented
In California’s autumn’s wonder
Below tall sycamores and elms;

After Thanksgiving before winter;
We bask in 86-degree warmth,
When unexpectedly a slightly curled
Leaf floats down before
My eyes,
And lands gently on my lap,
A died wonder for us to behold;

Then another drifter
Lets go from a large limb above,
A deep rust-brown leaf spattered
With light tan highlights and vein-lines,
Descends in front of us,

Swaying back and forth,
Languid,
Lightly
Floating down
Inches away from us,
Landing nearby
On the lawn;

I lay with my head way back,
Gazing up to the sky's azure blue,
As other gifts let go every few moments
From high above,
Swinging wide and gentle,

Falling beauty in slow motion,
Floating, swaying;
I realize—here, now--
With this Present--
I could die free, released.

-Dan Wilcox


Color Me Fiery Intense Red

As a kid, expressive, creative, rambunctious,
something of a wild card
long into adulthood
I loved vibrant Green--
for abundant life, for exuberant energy, vividly alive
for beauty like in colors, emerald or jade,
for the natural world from creek to patch of woods
behind our house on the edge of Adams village,
to verdant forest green glens of the Sierras, Sequoia and Yosemite

But--
then, suddenly, unexpectedly, without conscious why;
spontaneous, impulsively one day in middle life,
I awoke
not liking green anymore...
viewing green instead as dull, insipid, sickening, repetitious, odd, over-done, humdrum...

Color me instead--RED riveting, intense, striking sparks of light
cardinal, crimson, scarlet burst into my eyes and consciousness
—passionate, dazzling, blazing, heated, different...

as in exploding firework sky rockets,
as pulsing red coals in a bonfire,
as an amazing psychedelic quilt by my sweetheart
like an Impressionistic painting, luminous in our house
to ruby red lava in Hawaii’s volcano,
intense sunsets, and Utah’s red rock

RED forever

--Dan Wilcox


A Psalm of Late Life

Pessimist of my oldering years
Preyed upon by lamentable loss
I find no balmy psalms to lyre
But after discovered liars
Only this harp
of yawps and howls,
I pray for transcendence,
​This my modern yelled holler
My psalm of life end's exit
Dance in this sorrowing starred night



bidingTimeabiding

bite my teeth on famous lines
a hole lot of fragmented shells;
hunger hollows within--
deepening abyss
of lost longing
lone-ranging, reigning the distance
of a round heartless night

of a round heart-last light
lane-ranging, raining the day-stance
of last longing
steepening a-bless
fulness hallows within--
a whole lot of fragranced shalls;
bide my heart on famous lines
--


a time for…

in the fall a time for springing
childhood,
festivals of Monet-splashed leaves
that my sister and I raked and piled high
in the deep ditch in front
and jumped down into,

and our large garden behind the parsonage
with pumpkins, melons, and withered corn rows...
and lightning bugs on the wane,
flashing on and off

full of fall...
--


bolder utah

utah boulders,
eye widening rock
pastels bold in harvest's sun--
basalt garden wonder
--


at the park's bat box

my grandson scooping up handfuls
of dust
and swinging it loose--
fogged clouds
lighted by sunshine
that disperse
back to cleated ground

--

gull wings

gull wings
lightly spraying over gray clod fields
6-year drought--
so 'irrigating'!

--
Experience the awe-widened beauty of the Columbia Gorge:

MORNING GLORY

http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com/2017/10/morning-glory.html
--

Want to be conundrummed? Live in the starbacked night?
Visit Clockwise Cat Poetry Magazine: Klox and Katz Ink Issue, for my two new poems:
conundrumming
Starbacked
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/59489337/klox-and-katz-ink

Check out a brief poem on summer gloom, a haiku at vox poetica:
http://voxpoetica.com/dripping-rain-drizzles/

Then leave sorrow and war and memory behind. Journey love and romance in "Moon River" at Poetry Pacific.
http://poetrypacific.blogspot.com/2015/02/2-poems-by-daniel-wilcox.html

Need a little bit of humor in the midst of so much human tragedy and political chaos?
Try "The Pullout Coyote" at the fine poetry magazine, vox poetica.
A true but funny poetic story of our encounter with a wild critter in Yosemite last year.
http://voxpoetica.com/pull-out-coyote/
-

For Daniel's previously published writing visit http://www.psalmsyawpshowls.com/
Also, check out his new speculative novel, The Feeling of the Earth.

Get caught up in the joys, trials, and tribulations of 3 alienologists who warp into our solar system in 1842.
They become deeply involved and a mutation occurs in the human species. Journey through the years with them to 2074!
Available now at Barnes Noble, local bookstores, libraries, and Amazon.

Deal with the moving film over your eyes in "Film Over Our Eyes."
Is it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a poem....?

Experience Hollywood's wild ire, the roller-coaster excess of youth,
growing up fundamentalist Baptist, all that rollicking rock crazy Oz of the 60's, and Life itself.
http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/2013/11/film-over-our-eyes.html

There are 3 collections of Daniel's published poems,
Psalms, Yawps, and Howls,
Dark Energy
and selah river.
All 3 areavailable at Amazon, Barnes Noble, local bookstores, and coffee shops.
For Daniel's speculative writing, futuristic poems and stories warp over to
http://lastthings.weebly.com/.

Other websites include
http://lightwaveseeker.weebly.com
http://planktonpelican.weebly.com/


Do a Google sleuth and find washed up pieces of his poetic driftwood on the vast shores of the Internet.

His wild lines have fallen to print in many magazines including vox poetica, Fish Food Magazine, Contemporary American Voices, The Camel Saloon, Ascent Aspirations, Poetry Pacific, Dead Snakes, Paradise Review, The Mindful Word, Enhance Literary and Art Magazine, Knot Middle Eastern Literary Journal, Mouse Tales Press, Mad Swirl, Ancient Paths Literary Magazine,hotmetalpress.net, Front Porch Review, The Greensilk Journal, Bigger Stones, Lyrical Passion Poetry, Eunoia Review, The New Verse News, Decades Review, Quill and Parchment, Poydras Review, Counterexample Poetics, The Copperfield Review, Rubber Lemon, amphibi.us, Poetry Super Highway, Three Line Poetry, The Clockwise Cat, Liturgical Credo, Willows Wept Review, vox poetica, Structo Magazine #4, Four and Twenty, Gloom Cupboard, Clutching at Straws, The Centrifugal Eye, Wild Violet Literary Magazine, Lyrical Passion Poetry, A Handful of Stones, Haiku Journal, Right Hand Pointing, The Bicycle Review, Leaf Garden, The Recusant, Calliope Nerve, Static Movement, Unfettered Verse, outwardlink.net, protestpoems.org, Word Riot,
and
Moria Poetry, MediaVirus Magazine, Lunarosity, Hanging Moss Journal, The New Verse News, ocean diamond, The Writer's Eye, Mad Swirl, Abandoned Towers, Writer's Ink, The Scruffy Dog Review, Oak Bend Review, Crossing Rivers Into Twilight, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Cherry Blossom Review, Word Catalyst, The Houston Literary Review, Lucid Rhythms, Identity Theory, Halfway Down the Stairs, Frame Lines, Full of Crow, The Externalist, The Driftwood Review, Western Friend Magazine, Flutter Poetry Journal, Frostwriting, Words-Myth, Ink Sweat Tears, Erbacce Print Journal, Sentinel Poetry Online, The November 3rd Club, the poetry warrior, The Shine Journal, 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, Gambit, etc.

Photographs by Dan and Betsy Wilcox

​

CAT DAY--our master, the SPHINX who lords it over us; and now, just in time for ALL HALLOWS EVEN, another one, POE!

On a sad day over 2 years ago, Smoke, our past stray master, suddenly, took grievously ill and died.

Being the subservient humans that we are, we diligenty searched animal sheters to find a new master, but then out of the river bed near our house on the coast of California,
(where we sometimes spot opossums, a raccoon or lost dog, even a coyote),
the SPHINX arrived and sat, day after after day, attentively out in our yard with paws out front, watching us (like his namesake, the SPHINX of ancient Egypt, where cats first ruled).





NOW ENTER, this autumn, a new stray, black as pitch, POE, just in time for ALL HALLOWS EVEN.

Pic from Silky Sally Friends For Life Animal Rescue

May the Great Pumpkin bring you a new lord to order you around at this hallowed time of year;-).
How CATastrophic your evening could be.


You may even want to go online and read, "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe.

Dan Wilcox

BRIEF HISTORIC explanation of CAUSES of current HORRORS in PALESTINE-ISRAEL

WHO’S to BLAME for murderous crises in PALESTINE-ISRAEL this month?
(in half a page! based on extensive histories by JEWISH and other historians)

1. The CORRUPT-INTOLERANT Ottoman Empire
2. The BRITISH AND FRENCH GOVERNMENTS—especially the BRITISH WHO IN 1917 PROMISED 2 COMPLETLEY DIFFERENT, CONTRARY GROUPS OF PEOPLE—JEWS and ARABS,
the SAME PIECE of LAND that the British had liberated from the Turks, ending the Ottoman Empire.!

PHOTO of Hamas MURDERER by Hamas of its attacks on social media. Photo: Israel Defence Forces via AP

3. The intolerant, anti-democratic, raiding MUSLIM PALESTINIANS who often ATTACKED and MURDERED INNOCENT JEWISH CIVILIANS beginning in the late 1800’s!

4. THE IMMIGRANT—often illegal refugee JEWS (from Russia, Germany, etc.) WHO FROM THE BEGINNING in ABOUT 1915 WROTE that THEY PLANNED to EXPEL ALL PALESTINIANS, and TAKE ALL THEIR LANDS for EUROPEAN JEWS.

5. The RIOTING MUSLIN PALESTINIANS WHO in the 1920’s and 30’s again MURDERED many INNOCENT JEWISH CIVILIANS (even Jews whose FAMILES had lived in Palestine for many centuries)!

6. The JEWISH TERRORISTS such as the IRGUN WHO in the 1930’s and 40’s bombed INNOCENT PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS and murdered British soldiers including their infamous BOMBING of the KING DAVID HOTEL in the 1940’s.

7. The CURRENT EXTREMIST ISRAELI GOVERNMENT WHO REGULARLY STEALS LAND, WATER, etc. from poor Palestinians, CUTS DOWN THEIR ORCHARDS, as DID the ISRAELI MILITARY of a CHRISTIAN PALESTNIAN FAMILY’S ORCHARD even though that family has owned their land since back when only about 5% of PALESTINE-ISRAEL was JEWISH!

And the EXTREMIST ISRAELI GOVERNMENT supports INTOLERANT, RAMPAGING EXTREMIST JEWISH SETTLERS when they torch innocent PALESTINIANS’ CARS, DAMAGE THEIR HOMES, CUT DOWN THEIR OLIVE TREES:_(((

8. INTOLERANT, anti-democratic MUSLIM HAMAS who constantly HAS INTENTIONALLY MURDERED MANY THOUSANDS of INNOCENT JEWISH CIVILIANS, even murdered their own Palestinian people!

WHAT IS the SOLUTION to this HORRIFIC TRAGEDY?

NO ONE KNOWS, just like no one knows what to do about the millions of refugees who now are without a home in the world today!

Guest Post: Fairly Objective Overview of the Tragic History of Palestinians and Israelis

Here is a fairly objective overview of the tragic history of Israelis and Palestinians in the last 120 years. It summarizes well the many, many books on that history.

FROM ALJAZEERA:

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced many millions of people and has its roots in a colonial act carried out more than a century ago.

With Israel declaring war on the Gaza Strip after an unprecedented attack by the armed Palestinian group Hamas on Saturday, the world’s eyes are again sharply focused on what might come next.

Hamas fighters have killed more than 800 Israelis in assaults on multiple towns in southern Israel. In response, Israel has launched a bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 500 Palestinians. It has mobilised troops along the Gaza border, apparently in preparation for a ground attack. And on Monday, it announced a “total blockade” of the Gaza Strip, stopping the supply of food, fuel and other essential commodities to the already besieged enclave in an act that under international law amounts to a war crime.
But what unfolds in the coming days and weeks has its seed in history.

For decades, Western media outlets, academics, military experts and world leaders have described the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as intractable, complicated and deadlocked.

Here’s a simple guide to break down one of the world’s longest-running conflicts:

What was the Balfour Declaration?"

CONTINUE at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/9/whats-the-israel-palestine-conflict-about-a-simple-guide

Please hold the Israelis and the Palestinians in the Light.

Do what you can to help people see the real facts about this historic tragedy.

NOT the twisted and distorted ideological claims by both sides!

And support organizations that work for peace in Palestine-Israel such as Ramallah Friends School.

BLOOD BROTHERS: Christian Palestinian-Israeli Memoir by Elas Chacour

The LADY in the GARDEN

On a picture-post-card date near the swirling
Serpentine sway of the wide Schuylkill River
Meandering through Central Philly's park garden,

Towered over by leaning elms, while 3 long canoes
Swift by to the paddling of Ivy League rowers.
Gazing at my dear partner in this verdant garden;

My Friendly girl, Karen--ebony caped-round
In waist-length hair like a swaying black cloak--
She's an aspiring concert violinist and rights activist;

Vivid in her red chambray shirt and Levis, she
Converses intensely of King's D.C. March in 3 weeks,
Me listening intently to my companion in the garden.

I, the drafted conscientious objector, work for Uncle Sam
With forsaken kids confined to sterile mental wards,
Disturbed by parents' wrong living; but still am

So youthfully focused on my comely girlfriend’s
Figured shape more than humanity’s ship of state.
A warm date with my dear companion in the garden.

We sit cross-legged on a wide lush parkway green,
Getting ready to munch our carefully bagged meal
Of 2 peanut butter and grape sandwiches,

Yet we discuss war’s ravages in far-off Nam
And Bob Dylan's 'hard rained' croons.
Loving my dear concerned friend in the garden

But then I inhale a fuming putrid odor;
Twist my neck and see this bagged lady in a filthy rag
Of a dress lunging slowly forward, hanging

Onto her trashy mesh of a shopping bag, her rancid
Stench to high heaven wafts, and I pinch my nose;
Turn back to Karen, not this intruder in the garden.

But lo and hold--my violinist, instead, rises
And welcomes the old hag, “Hi Lady, will you join us
For our little Sunday snack here in the warm sun?”

The homeless stranger sprawls haggardly on our grass,
Her grimy shift wrinkling on her scraggly legs.
Karen gazes warmly at this unknown one in the garden

I'm all upside-down in my face as this invader,
Reaches out her grubby hand to our blanket,
Grabs one of our 2 sandwiches, and half crams

It in her narrow jaws, chews open-mouthed and teethed,
While I fume, separated from my date
By this chomping vagrant in our parked garden.

But then I awake, remembering almost too late,
The very deep story about the least of these; I turn,
And finally join my dear musician's caring psalm,

We now communing 3 of human kind,
Under these verdant swaying trees of warmth.
Sharing friends,--in this present park garden.


--Dan Wilcox

First pub. in The Oak Bend Review
in different form;
in Selah River, a collection of Daniel's
published poetry,
And before, in Dark Energy, a book of poems by Daniel
published by Diminuendo Press


In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox

My Lifestance--in brief-: a Transcendence Seeker

A TRANSCENDENCE SEEKER, living for Moral Realism--
the True, the Just, the Caring.
Living for Jesus' moral truths in the Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13, Galatians 5:22...

Living in the worldview of Liberal Quakerism (within the movement, not so much the organization),
especially communing with others in expectant openness and hope and peacemaking;
oppose violence of speech and action.

In philosophical speculation, probably Process Deism;

In method of living, the primacy of reason and the scientific method;
and a focus on individual creativity in literature, the arts, and technology

in politics, leftist with libertarian leanings;
in economics, free enterprise, though with very strong social caring and practical help for impoverished,
dysfunctional, troubled, lost, etc.;

In government, voting democracy, (not electoral college).
Require meticulous honesty, moral leaders who while standing strong for the good and just,
also seek to work across political divides with opposing leaders of opposite parties;

In society, equality (not equity), consensus; generosity; creativity;
Avid support for human rights, "I Have a Dream" integration and reconciliation;
Very strong support for Monogamous marriage, the Nuclear family
including support for same sexual marriage for gay and lesbian couples;

Opposition to ideological falsehoods and social contagions including Trans and Nonbinary delusions--and their denial of the biological reality of the binary nature of human sexuality. Over 98% of humans are born either boy or girl.
Help those tiny percentage of humans who are born with physical errors such as intersex or who have illusionary feelings contrary to actual facts.

Against PRIDE Parades that glorify sleazy and immoral sexual behavior,
Drag Queens that demean actual women, harm the innocence of children, etc.
LGBTQ+ Propaganda and flags, promiscuity, kink sexuality, polyamory;

Opposed to the twisting of language such as the claim that a human can decide whether or not to be a man or a woman,
and that sex is "assigned at birth."
Of course that is an Orwellian falsehood. Infants aren't "assigned at birth." Baby humans come out of our mother's womb either boy or girl. And that actual fact is written down.

Against Trumpism, Augustinian-Reformed Christianity, Marxism, CRT (that distorts actual history), BLM (that is against the nuclear family and falsely blames whole groups of humans,and makes false claims of "systemic racism" in contemporary society). Of course, there have been cases of systemic racism such as segregation, "Jim Crow," Sun-down Towns, Apartheid, etc. And BLM attacks all police officers as racists, even though most officers are fair, just, and against racism.


To be continued...

In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox