The Orange

� Copyright, Henry Riley, April, 2000

The orange
  The passive figure
Hung on a tree
Left from a single thrust
Of a flowery crown
That somehow turns to thorns

The earth is the foundation for industry
The earth nourishes the orange groves
To which we become a season of human imagery
Autodreams struggle through parking lots of sandy erosion
Sunrise laughing full moon in mockery smiles down on mechanical 
                         dominion of man
December's gate opens
The guard nods a look of time
Pushing clocks people fade in and out of industrial scenes
Trucks crack the whip overburdened with their destinies

In college only an occasional piece of fruit I picked
No time passed simple love was irresponsible confident of what
                         time would unfold
I watched the orchards as a yogimotherloverstronghold need
Imagining beaded thoughts spiraling through bodies' nerves and
                         veins by the monastic field of decaying flesh
Turn out the pushing parent start living to learn
Tell me grandfather of your fear of machines
Now the world I face with her work

The factory is citrus
The men clocking out nod their heads to say an empty hello
Who was I and what was I doing
Standing on interlocking catwalk high above the heaping of orange
                         bin peels gazing through steaming vapors
Eyeing drowsy alleys and tempting green pastures until I caught
                         my breaths horizon
Who was I talking to the pages of a blackman
Or loading up boxcars
Or throwing hundred pound bags of feed
Only one man sang a dusty Dylan tune offering illuminations
The mechanics and machine operators all wore tragi-comic smiles
The odd jobs of shoveling feedspills from augurs gut were filled
                          by traveling people drunks and high school kids

Dead eyes of bow legged cowboy with cigar lit in lips
Cutting cold red beams covered in lifeless tin
My feet in concrete unprepared unbelieving captivated zazen
Pellet machines turn dies pressing orange pulp into cow feed

These million dollar dreams
Are they going to help the dragging lifeless ones

Unannounced a laborer a friend giving
Awkward loving touch
To mechanical world
Wearing old clothes
Worried eyes and coic smiles
Intuition
No money
He is timeless religious democratic
         drunken prejudiced lusty
         mexican black texan southern northern jamaican
The laborer cradled in daily routine dreams a-home

New process citrus molasses to sugar
Plus bi-product ammonia-nitrate
Automation
Technicians chemists engineers
Play efficiency games
Laughing at the ignorance of
Simple small town grits

Big deal contract
Opens new doors 
For fast talk
Deliver operational package
Then heat produced from
Regeneration process
Gas a yellow cloud
Catastrophic explosion
Tearing away all sophistication
Two alive one dead
Morning's bleak destruction
Shook me blind

I stood nightwatch
To let no one in
To produce
A sad picture of
The automated orange peel

Is there a spirit
An orange redeemer
That claims
The desperate soul
Giving an endless peel of laughter
For trying to cage
Eden's fruit

The lab of quality control
A world apart from
Punching time on a card
The running madness

Away from the grinding mills
The truck loads of fruit
The Monday morning start-ups
Saturday shutdowns
Sunday cleanup and repairs

The lab where
Orange analysts
Dissect every phase
Involving the fruit
To create quality
Frozen in a can

I have no opinion of the orange
After five years
I've become a stranger to myself
Lost in a sphere of fleshy images
Seeking at last emotional freedom
Through the arts

Poetry a world apart from ...
In the growing field of my imagination
What strength rises up
A fondness for heartfelt dreams
What knowledge and friends
Await at every turn
Of every word escaping toward my
Breath's horizon

An Unexpected Trip to Cypress Gardens
                 "nothing is real"

� Copyright, Henry Riley, January, 2001

On a chill bone winter morning
We left by bus to go where
Time can be left behind with gates and guards.
To coax the eye to discover along paths
By foot or boat the tender witness
Within the maze of rolling universe;
That yields up from earth and sea
The flicker of light on cellular majesty.
Rooted remembering flourishing
Trunk and limb whispering to me
From the veins of leaves
That I should linger in sensitive green
Absorbing the radiant light of being.

Standing gazing from a bridge over a
Small inlet cove I see reflected 
In consciousness descriptions of 
Green carpet, where as on a stage
A young lady in traditional southern
Dress stands waving to the passers-by;
...to me she resembles the names
People give to things in their snapshot
Society, while unpronounced she
Streams forth alleluias from the delicate
Mouths of flowers.

   I stood and dwelled long
On the voices in my head spinning of webs of light,
Like Monet's effervescent canvases.
   Shakespeare poised handling fantasy and reality,
Scrolling intricate designs upon shifting tide,
Building up the grains of time in which we walk,
Wrapped in our dreams.
   Walt Whitman equally of earth and air
Observes with side-turned head enumerating all events
Since creation, participating in the act of creation;
Then evolving into and knowing every part and parcel
Of himself to be woven into the landscape, desirous
Yearning for, yet silent and content,
A bridge between worlds.
   What fascinates me now, Loren Eisley,
Is hypnotic raven prying energetically at my shadowy world
With his two dimensional eye.  How flat the world must seem?  Then
to mount the railing of the bridge and sermonize upon a seed
Was something Carlos Castenada should have SEEN!

As I walked past orchid boughs
Father Cypress to behold golden
Buddha shining light to rose hearted glow of Christ.
   Grey stork stalked mysterious fish
In a strange enlightened theatre, I felt absurd,
Walking from stone to stone to Banyan tree, Alive!  Alive!
The green so flush the flower so pure and sunlit ...
The gardener silent at his task
Picks up a fallen withered flower.
   Immersed in thoughts of sculptor Isamu Nagoochi
I crouched hillside by a manmade waterfall, I found
Myself humbled not only before the glory of rock and 
Water in their magnificent power, water lending to stone
Its hidden beauty, but more than that I saw the spider
Monkey who gazed longingly into the shimmering water
Flowing across the rocks; the glory was in his eye, and
The vibrations of that glory filled the air ... all the 
Words written in books will never amount to the 
Flickering of light that scatters so brightly
Across the awakened inner eye
   The witness
That flows in and out of time.

            In Search of Our Highest Idea


Violins flutes speak within the chamber and beyond
Clouds move above mountain peaks, we ride the wind.
Falling the crystal snow covers rock ledge and drops
down bottomless ravines.
No sign of life
Or anything grows
Not twisted branch
Or eagle's nest
Elements raw
Pass in and out of being
In a long procession
Leaving their signature on huge rock face.

Disciple peaks surround white windswept snowblown
Austerities of the One Being,
Who pressing the veils between worlds
Assures all beings another day of light;
Embracing adjusting to some tropical sphere
Where grows a seed of passion
A seed of divine will
Drums of procession
Wailing of strange horns
Sounds of the music twist and weave
From plateau to plateau.


                                              II

Without blinking an eye or rolling his tongue
Or flexing folds of perpetual time
Herds of whiptailed one celled voyagers came into being.

Dance cell sweep and swim
Across from the other side.

Dance cell sweep and swim
You are the riddle at the beginning of time.

Dance tiny being flicker of light
Traveler faithful messenger of the original design.

Dance on beginning to end
Long you have traveled sensitive friend
Dance again and again on and on.

In dense forests swimming with salty eye fish eye
In vegetation moist and liquid foaming tide
Lizards slide sinuous guttural hordes in the slime.

Tree and cave of bushytailed five fingered
Breathing in the night and bearing dim resolutions
To mend the bones with the flowers and the stars.

                                         III

Into the body of this innocent creation
Pour waters,
Waters and fragrance,
Electric whirling sounds,
Let him taste light.
Image upon image grow
Until in him a tool
A microcosm spinning in all directions.
Place a fire in him
The sparks will raise him above the clouds,
Where a sun will bring him closer
To the ashes on his head.

Now, see!
This reluctant beast fragile guest in forest
Without wings climb
Now searching out a path
Awe struck or devouring his own being
Lapses into slumber
Or recreates his own inner world
By way of his art.

Strange how he speaks of space and time...
` IV

When my feet sink beneath vestibule,
Blackiron cross reflected in '57 Chevy windex chrome,
Dark roots, rotting vegetation, whispering flags,
Radio daydreams of rockin' pneumonia, hours behind
Textbooks teachers disgusted looks, lost brick cobblestone
Edgar Allen Poe Alley, advertisement for lips for the
Thirsting cigarette smoking hips, sand and everlasting
Waves of rum waterfall with flashing slap of broke down
Car, neon boss, children waving in wheat fields, cereal
Box supermarket, business suit bagboy grin full of
Chewing gum teeth, forgotten groceries, sunset alone
For us our eternity through plate glass window beside
A fist of teeming knobby eyed food stamp children.

I find my sagging starlit corner subdivision
Cement block tornscreen drippy faucet finger pointed
At my ownership, my pact with the flesh falling
Designedly before depressing T.V. news, or in my room
Crossing thoughts of friends and their lives, their grace,
Their burning figure drifts in anointing the place where
I paid my electric bill and read about the hearts that
Died in the unknown embrace.

Hear This Soul Bless Them...
Bless Them...
Make Sure They Eat
bless them...left over lunches dirty dishes
bless them...with another day of bliss
bless them...children tucked in bed
bless them...and tear out of ribbed forest
cages the damned and sprinkle them with magic ferns.

                                        V

Erratic tumbling brown paper bag in the wind
Shivers in the sunlight, shattered bodies fall
To shadowy graves below the oak limbs that split
The sky as they point to gray solutions

Rain falls in the palm of my hand
With a childs face in it, beings of unknown origin
Sew mosaics of the cosmos to my heart.
My final umbilical cord before death
Renames retunes and reshapes
this blind dimension of myself
this hopeless circling voice of mine.

Paths to Central and South America appear
In a national media dream of someone else's death.
The political warriors pawn the poor in heaps of machine death
To rake the pearls of their hearts out of the pockets of their
Graves, when out of the sea of barbed tongues comes the higher
Law in the form of the Pontiff.
Calling all peoples to the inner battle,
Beyond the thousands of suffering innocents,
Beyond justice
to the being of one
to the being of forgiveness.

Imagine,
At the end of third world war elderly man speaks to youth...
Remain sad youth, stir the mad desirous streets where buildings
Fall and a cool chocolate smell fills the cavity of empty cities,
The remains of civilization that you can rename, for it will be
renamed, again with all the same fondness for towers that touch
The sky,
Or take to the mountains and play the reed and carve your ballad
Your sutras upon the rock where the star shines on the longest
Day in your conscious memories eye.
CRY ALOUD, HOSANNA!
FOR IF YOU DON'T NO ONE ELSE WILL!


                                       VI

At the horizon at the time of inhalation,
The period of grace the prelude to day,
Draw up from the spring your empty bucket.
Night lingers in the eye of an ox.
in the hoot of an owl.
Mingling voices carry in the cool air
No particular voice seems to be your own.
Feet stir on cold floors, odors open doors,
Light streams through kitchen windows,
Awnings drop, children sing,
Petals glisten with dew.
Distant hum from the market and nature becomes in you-
The return of the bee,
the cardinal,
the redwing blackbird,
the scent of orchards in bloom,
a feeling of nostalgia is born,
for eternity this moment expresses.

Raised hands cupped hands to receive the rains of summer,
Eyes raised breast exposed to the heavens,
Imagination runs out on an arch
Propelling your body out of its static sphere,
Becoming more receptive to the trails of light.
The open ear is flooded with new harmonies-
The scent of jasmine calls you,
Mystic sage purifies you,
Lotus anoints and enlightens you,
The rose brings revelation.
Your being becomes radiant.
Put on the cloak of pale moonlight,
Or you will burn the ones you love.

Walk firm upon the path of Autumn's evening sigh,
Through the street these reflections-
Raise civilization out of its libraries
Out of the consciousness of things,
For you are not slick advertising,
you are not politics governments,
you are not tv set movie stars,
you are not canned fruit,
you are not inflated money,
you are not Madison Avenue,
you are not one nation or many nations,
you are not an eco-system,
you are not the duldrums or high anxiety,

YOU ARE BEING!
YOU ARE THE UNCREATED POSSIBILITY
EXPLORING EXISTENCE!
WE CHOOSE OUR MODE
THE FREQUENCIES OF JOY OR DESPAIR!

Snow falls on an endless night,
In streets over hills where footprints
have never appeared.
Yet everything is alive,
The measured warmth of the heart
Abounds in each crystal that knows
a million forms...
Morning's realization does grow
Every time the harp of eternity breathes down the scale
On a stage that is set anew every moment.

                                       VII

We spin and transform the earth
With the sweep of the wind a melody
That returns and flowers.

Sculptors potters men of clay and stone,
Create movement without motion
Reflect in form the formless.

Craftsmen of wood of block of metals,
Develop the designs that live with light
Impressions of the primordial presence.

Teachers of concepts,
Awaken with your vision a broader view
For the mystery even understood cannot be properly spoken of.

Doctors heal the wounds,
Heal and balance those who suffer
From separation from the taste of the flesh.

Lawyers judges government officials,
Form the law that endures
That bears justice impartially and fairly
Among all the people and all the nations.

Scientists discover and move
With sensitive touch over creation
Technology is a metaphor you are the instrument.

We spin through the cosmos
Every atom of the totality pulsing with light
Every dimension flowing into one another.


This poem is dedicated to Hazrat Inayat Khan and to all those who form a bridge between the dimensions of our being.

Work in Progress                                         

� Copyright, Henry Riley, January, 2001

Trapped in a factory
Forced to listen and see
A cacophony of life,
Tales blathered
In stream of conciousness,
A history of mother tongues.

The center does hold
The gyre of words
Arcs of existential urge
Played out on an orderly field
Of honor, or cast their luck
With the lottery or a pack of cards,
Seeking someone to dance with
Someone to listen to their story.

Outside the factory,
There are roads,
There are maps to help us find our way.
The map of the world, the cosmos even
Cannot take us where we want to go.
Every exit requires a leap of faith.
We are, all of us, a work in progress.