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      
still once more  
         yet again