NOTHING LESS

Writhe for me
      All the threads connect here
where desire meets expression
      I love to hike the trails
      you blaze in me

We weren't born to know life
      only through its symptoms
Nothing is where it is not
      Why pretend to have discovered
      what you've never experienced?

One person's panic
      is another person's excitement
Nothing less will do
      I'm most myself
      when I'm loving you

Steve Toth

SPOUTING WHALES

In the sea stack area off pebble beach
      where the ocean has worn
      away everything soft
so that only what is hard remains
      we see the spouts of two
      no three gray whales

Cylinders of cloud billowing mist
      shoot up like individual rain storms
      so we can follow their movements
Two of them are swimming
      side by side close in to shore
      like a mother & calf might

We can not see how water this shallow
      will keep creatures
      larger than a city bus
hidden for long & so we settle in
      watching hoping to see something
      spectacular in the making

Maybe we will witness some tail action
      when they go down to suck out
      a chunk of the bottom or muddy water
rushing from an emerging mouth filtering
      through fringed baleen plates
      for small shrimp-like animals

But the most they will show us this day
      besides their blow holes
      are a few choice glimpses
of their glistening backs rising up like
      something we will never want to forget
      then sinking back under again

Steve Toth

SQUIRRELLY

When I was younger my idea
      of how to spend
      a sweltering summer afternoon
was to sit cross-legged under a tree
      with my back against the trunk
      reading a poetry book
in the shade catching
      whatever breeze there was

But the squirrels had other ideas
      When one thought
      I had hung around long enough
it would start eating acorns
      right above me
      dropping the inedible parts
on me & my book so I would
      move to another tree

There the same thing would happen
      until I had used up all the trees
      & it was time to go home
Telling a friend about this recently
      he said I had it all wrong
      The squirrels weren't telling me to move
just letting me know another being was present
      & that I should read the poetry aloud

Steve Toth

THIS WIND STORM

This wind storm
      won't be satisfied
until it touches everything
      that's not buried
      in this town

To me the wind is howling
      but to the trees
it is more intimate
      "Moan if you like it
      Groan if you want more"

Steve Toth

TO TELL THE TRUTH

I would like to tell the truth
      the whole truth
      & nothing but the truth
but what if so help me
      the truth can`t be spoken only lived?
What if there's nothing words can tell us
      that isn't a lie because words aren't
      quite the things they say they are?

Simply declaring we each
      have our own mother tongue
      doesn't really exhaust all the guises
Thought has become so entwined
      with language I can`t remember
the last idea that didn't come written down
      Are we all cells in the same body
      or cells in the same prison?

Do you want me to turn everything
      up side down or inside out for you?
      Must I resort to insinuating metaphors
& blatant paraphrases to get myself across?
      Even the unspoken words silently
going through my pockets are suspect
      You're not reading a page of fire
      You're lighting a labyrinth of longing

Steve Toth

WATER BIRDS

The common loon
      doesn't know how common it is
      & so it fishes with a flare

Diving with a snap
      then breaking the surface
      some time & distance away

Now it splashes up with a silver fish
      which it arranges head first
      so it won't stick in the throat

Knowing nothing of death
      all creatures except
      humans practice immortality

Steve Toth

CAT FOR THE SKY

With a burst of speed
      our neighbor's cat
races more than half way up
      the apple tree trunk
      after a chuckling starling
& thereupon tries to look inconspicuous
      but the songster isn't taken in

With a series of wing flaps
      the bird lights on one branch
after another leading the cat
      on a zigzag course upward
      until it finally glides onto
the highest point then leaves behind
      the cat for the sky

The cat perches sure of foot
      upon the tree's very summit
with nothing much to hold on to
      Rotating her head & looking down
      from ever changing views
sizing up her next move but first
      is there anything to pounce on?

Steve Toth

WAIT & SEE

So many mirrors to grow old in
      all except for yours
      Hey poet if you've got any
heart left then write us a paradise
      Our brains can catch up later

We see life with love vision
      waiting out the storm
      as rain drops in the wind
Each splash landing right
      where it belongs

It takes love to make love
      Everything just seems to work
We've got to reach
      beyond our grasp
      I want to hold your space

Your eyes tell me
      what words never do
Now read my lips with a kiss
      So much talk about doing
      & here it is done

Steve Toth

SPREADING WINGS

In a tree bare of leaves & bark
      on a cliff above the ocean
      four vultures just over
the edge of  fog
      spread their wings
      in the morning sun
at the ends of four branches
      until they are done

Then one by one
      they slip off silently
      into the sky
& are instantly airborne
      Such an artful take off
      sure beats running
into a head wind & flapping
      your wings like mad

Steve Toth

REALLY IN WISCONSIN

After we get some firewood gathered
      & a campfire started
      Bob is trying to get
the cornbread to turn solid
      This is going to take some time

I begin walking down the trail
      but soon pick up the pace
      & am jogging
Looking to my left I see a deer
      effortlessly running along side

Its forelegs bend in beauty
      as it leaps a fallen log
      Like a slalom ski racer
it cuts through the standing trees
      leaning slightly into the turns

The deer in the woods exudes
      an illusion of weightlessness
      It hardly seems to touch
the ground almost like its feet are
      ricocheting off  the forest floor

For a few seconds we are
      twin impulses caught up
      in the same energy wave
but the deer suddenly veers to the left
      & is instantly swallowed up

I stop in my tracks breathing hard
      with eyes searching
      the place it disappeared
for some sign that it was real
      but there is none

Steve Toth

HEADLONG

Once again this year
      I never saw winter coming
      I was too busy loving you
The earth busts one of its moves
      & the angels break into song
      We can't stop now for anything

Being with you makes it all clear
      If fear is a calling for love
      then love is a letting go of fear
If life is a flower opening
      then love is its nectar knowing
      Love makes the best aphrodisiac

Now's a moment for us
      to jump in headlong & love
      like we've never been loved
All these words mask nothing
      Soon & very soon we are
      going to see the spring

Steve Toth

HEADLONG

Once again this year
      I never saw winter coming
      I was too busy loving you
As long as we live it's like this
      How can we stop now
      when it is always now?

Love makes the best aphrodisiac
      Thoughts are things
      Feelings are energy
We have our ways
      You give me all I want
      & all I want is you

Now's a moment for us
      to jump in headlong & love
      like we've never been loved
All these words mask nothing
      Soon & very soon we are
      going to see the spring

Steve Toth

THE MEANING OF MEANING

Without words would our thoughts
      really rush about madly
      like irritated ants
or is that just the kind of thinking
      words would talk us into
      in order to justify their existence?

Words can chatter all they want about
      but never actually become
      the truths they do but describe
Naming implies a certain falsification
      Every noun is another metaphor
      What if your name was an embrace?

Some people say language is
      a volcano of ash & not of fire
      that hacks instead of pierces
What if the meaning of wet
      was a bucket of water
      poured over your head?

Steve Toth

Groundhog Day

Celebrate this unlikely oracle,
this ball of fat and fur,
whom we so mysteriously endow
with the power to predict spring.
Let's hear it for the improbable heroes who,
frightened at their own shadows,
nonetheless unwittingly work miracles.
Why shouldn't we believe
this peculiar rodent holds power
over sun and seasons in his stubby paw?
Who says that God is all grandeur and glory?

Unnoticed in the earth, worms
are busily, brainlessly, tilling the soil.
Field mice, all unthinking, have scattered
seeds that will take root and grow.
Grape hyacinths, against all reason,
have been holding up green shoots beneath the snow.
How do you think spring arrives?
There is nothing quieter, nothing
more secret, miraculous, mundane.
Do you want to play your part
in bringing it to birth? Nothing simpler.
Find a spot not too far from the ground
and wait.

~ Lynn Ungar ~


(Blessing the Bread)

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Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine.
They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the
world,
are the ones who do.


(Advertisement for Apple Computer,
adapted from the writings of Jack Kerouac)

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I Believe In All

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing to you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~


(Rilke’s Book of Hours:Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows
and Joanna Macy)

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BEAR TREE 2

Talking through the fence
      with my neighbor who has worked
      most of his life in the forest
but now his company has gone
      out of business

He tells me that trees
      clawed up by bears used to be
      few & far between
in the most out of the way places
      but now that has changed

He says that it starts with one bear
      but then another comes by
      with a longer reach
Then a third takes it further
      & maybe even a fourth

He says there are more of them now
      & they are often found
      where humans are sure to see them
like the redwood we saw by the road
      & walking trail

Maybe the message of the trees is no longer
      meant just for bears anymore
      but for humans as well
Do not consider this place your own unless
      you claw higher & deeper than this

Steve Toth

LOVE POEM 11

Roll me along with your waves
      Rock me with your tides
The deeper we go
      the less there is to fear
Making true what my senses
      have been dreaming
      There is no other like you

Don't you make me feel
      like I'm the only one alive?
Yes & don't you know
      we're still catching up
with our hearts?
      May no one live
      without being loved

My soul is still glowing from last time
      The more I burn the more I learn
Come look into the face of your love
      Come here & let me thank you
Dear God just let me thank you
      When you love me
      I stay loved

Love me as you desire
      Love me in any sense
Love the top of my head off
      Love my brains out
Love me with no controls
      Love is never done with one
      There is always more to come

Steve Toth