AS I ORBIT THESE CITY SIDEWALKS    (6-31-1990; San Diego, California)

             
             
all these hard  city sidewalks              
and streets              
hot asphalt              
and cracked  broken concrete              
measured by feelings              
under my weak  weary              
tired stepping feet              
bring long passed  forgotten              
ghost s histories              
and their still resonantly lingering              
echoing blues to mind              
from all the varied me s and you s              
who ve passed over these very same              
paths  walkways  streets and roads before me here      
long before my time              
who ve passed over these non hallowed              
passed over grounds              
passively observing the concrete s              
random cracked  fractured  broken lines              
in ever changing textures              
of dirt  grit  trash and cigarette butts              
in splats of mouths and birds              
in spit and shit              
in shattered bits of broken glass bottles              
from countless passers by and through        
reflections of the human zoo            
in ongoing continuous            
historical flux            
whose resonant echoing            
vibrational frequency s        
still faintly present        
subtle  residual ghosts            
still yet accumulatively reside            
deeply embedded            
in all these many            
now long passed            
distant decades            
lapsed  forgotten miles            
unpaved and paved alike          
silently scrolling by            
underfoot and wheel            
by all those living now        
these days            
who still traverse upon            
along  across and through        
them daily        
though most of whom        
aside from me            
i suspect            
so seldom  if ever            
even faintly            
sense  feel  see  intuit        
or reflectively            
become aware of them          
or their subtle energies at all        
look back if you can        
and take a much deeper             
closer look at what we ve done              
to our sweet  most precious        
sacred  living mother earth        
at what we as a species have done to her        
over these last  past        
four to five hundred years alone        
which leads me to wonder            
how many or few have passed by here over time              
walking mindfully inspired              
to the seen and unseen              
subtler and greater world              
and worlds within worlds              
everywhere all around them              
wherever they travelled to              
wandered or roamed              
throughout their lifetime s  journeys              
in a sacred  conscious manner              
here like me            
where i consciously and intentionally            
echo the historically inspiring        
more profoundly awakened        
more enlightened        
higher consciousness footsteps        
of buddha and christ        
saint francis  blake  ghandi        
whitman  thoreau  muir            
kerouac  snyder and more          
as i continue to walk or ride upon        
and all along            
all these daily and occasional        
routine routes            
yet i cannot help but wonder at times            
out of how many countless other              
hopelessly unawakened              
human disasters who pass this way            
if there are any others            
still out here in this world like me            
who similarly sense  feel  intuit or perceive            
all these resonantly lingering            
still presently echoing ghosts            
whose now long forgotten          
individual life s stories          
still energetically inhabit          
this big old so cal city s          
sidewalks  streets and roads            
or am i perhaps            
the only one left          
who can and does        
innately still sense  see        
intuit and feel        
their faintly echoing        
vibrational presences here        
and in countless other places as well        
seems it s getting ever harder and harder        
to tell anymore        
which leads me to further question myself        
how tired is my faith              
how worn are my feet              
as i continue to walk on barefoot through              
all these cold  dirty  cracked  broken              
concrete  haunting human sidewalk blues        
around me here        
while all the while              
still so desperately missing        
since moving into this big        
so cal city        
the simple all healing beauty              
of my now more remote        
lifelong  profound              
soul deep intimate connection              
with the living sea and her waves              
as i walk on passively              
reflectively observing              
all the other many              
blindly obedient              
human sheeple slaves              
unquestionably behaving          
and doing the biding          
of their masters              
in this overly paved              
overly insulated              
now near completely disconnected        
capitalistic  dog eat dog        
human rat race  consumerist world        
that s now become        
from out of this        
once so much more natural        
beautiful and pristine        
so called land of the free              
where all truth now              
seems to have escaped              
been changed              
sold out  erased              
forgotten  misplaced or lost              
somewhere out there              
in the ever expanding              
industrial  technologically metastasized              
illusory  material world s              
dead end  blind faith              
in this spiritually unawakened              
overly saturated              
delusionally disconnected              
completely unsustainable              
apathetically contented        
ego driven  soul blinded        
temporal  human world              
which so heavily permeates              
everything  everywhere around me              
even here now              
down below me        
here beneath           
my more mindfully reflective              
open  passive  slowly passing feet            
where i still sense and feel them all            
faintly echoing here            
even in all these occasional              
iron  man hole street covers              
and gutter grate storm drains        
i have to step over           
along my way           
wherein i ask myself now            
how can i continue to walk              
in a sacred manner here anymore              
or ever again for that matter              
in a world gone so bad              
so increasingly mad and insane              
as this              
as i continue to walk silently on        
in my own individual        
completely separate        
independently disconnected by choice        
uniquely tuned in        
peripheral way        
in which i continue        
to look everywhere around me              
here in this big city              
mindfully observing everything              
i sense and see        
in continuous search for beauty        
wonder  magic  and mystery        
wherever i can sense  see or find it        
still hidden away        
amidst all this soul suffocating artifice        
and self destructive material greed        
hoping to find and see            
any evidence or signs i can            
of god s living presence        
and higher expression in mankind as a whole    
now so seemingly    
so much further    
so much more hopelessly    
fallen from grace    
these days    
wherein even so it often seems    
i continue  against all odds    
to look  sense  intuit  feel           
anywhere and everywhere i can            
to and within all that opens              
and visually unfolds before me        
each day along my way            
as well as in              
all those neutral              
subconsciously hidden places              
and subtly less visible spaces              
where i am usually most blind            
even discreetly masked within    
all the twisted faces              
in all the twisted spines              
in all the twisted  forgotten places              
within the twisted minds              
where so many hopelessly entangled        
human mutations  increasingly abound              
everywhere around me        
around everyone else as well    
presently still living out their live s        
here on this no longer sustainable        
increasingly collapsing doomed planet s ride        
wherein still imore often than not              
it seems just as hard to find        
now even more so than ever before            
though still despite all that        
i continue to simply        
but ever more mindfully    
just keep on walking mindfully on              
and passively  yet consciously    
hopefully sill seeking it              
while whiling away my time              
here amidst our present world s              
increasingly hopeless  lost  human cultures            
of so many pandemic        
intractably  self centered egoically blinded minds          
increasingly colliding with    
against and into each other        
in all this relentless  increasingly crazy lost world    
of so much self seeking self  seeking self              
and yet  despite all that              
i still sense  feel  intuit  see and know              
that the greater spirit truth        
which lies beneath the illusory surface layers        
just behind and beyond all that            
still resonantly lives        
vibrationally echoing within        
all these mirror like              
strange  ongoing        
human sidewalk shows              
where everyone comes and goes              
with or without me        
before this present here and now        
and possibly  but just as possibly not        
long after potentially as well        
but right here        
in this present  ongoing moment s        
true only right here and now              
i continue to walk on              
just outside the broken              
white striped borderline              
of the white cross walk line              
as i cross this dense traffic              
litter filled road before me        
i momentarily close my eyes        
just long enough           
to breathe slowly in              
this foul  toxic city air              
then heavily              
yet solemnly sigh          
before slowly reopening my eyes          
just before reaching the other side          
as i continue walking on          
though not yet quite halfway home          
i can t help but wonder just when          
and how many more times          
before i even get there          
i might get lost        
from my meanderingly wandering        
ongoing spontaneous flow        
of tangential prone          
self reflective thoughts        
before me myself        
and them all        
go wildly veering          
out of orbit here  
once more  
        yet again