Quote by: David Deida Poem by: TA Delmore

Right now, and in every now-moment, you are either closing or opening.
You are either stressfully waiting for something—more money, security, affection—or you are living from your deep heart, opening as the entire moment, and giving what you most deeply desire to give, without waiting.
If you are waiting for anything in order to live and love without holding back, then you suffer.
Every moment is the most important moment of your life.
No future time is better than now to let down your guard and love.
Everything you do right now ripples outward and affects everyone.
Your posture can shine your heart or transmit anxiety.
Your breath can radiate love or muddy the room in depression.
Your glance can awaken joy.
Your words can inspire freedom.
Your every act can open hearts and minds.
Opening from heart to all, you live as a gift to all.
In every moment, you are either opening or closing.
Right now, you are choosing to open and give fully or you are waiting.
How does your choice feel?

David Deida, from 365 Nirvana, Here and Now by Josh Baran (as quoted on Tricycle)



All will be Revealed

Take my fathers rhymes
Add my mother’s gifts,
Give it to me, fresh
As home baked bread Strong
As an oak tree. Stiff
As carded wool.
My time, aging and moving
Carrying bits of memory;
When trolleys sparked
And asphalt was agitating.

Bend my days and cure
My soul
Let me lean into it.
Lend me clues, a green leaf
Into tomorrows yellow.
A cracked chestnut
A caressed nipple.

Take a son’s conversation
That leaves a line
Hung with wet laundry.
A missing button on a sun dress
Revealing. The crow on the wire
Waiting. Life in domino zags.
A sticker bush of yesterdays-
Rose full today.

The trees, yellow like
Lamp light before dark.
Cut grass with its smell
Windows that shine an autumn
Collage, reflecting moments
In a harvest moon.

Quote : Fred Astaire Poem TA Delmore

Fred Astaire said, "The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style."



Nesting Crow
The crow
through my window
only goes
left to right
south to north-
beak breaded with bits
of nest.

This is the season
of one direction
of erect
and earnest constitution.

the void of right
to left, north
to south is something
undiscovered-
maybe sensual.

Quote by: Tennessee Williams Poem by: TA Delmore

Tennessee Williams said, "I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really."


55 Ford with Heavy Doors
I miss supermarket music
The ones absent of lyrics.
Elevator ditties
That hid my crying
Among carrots and beets.

Holding my thumb
As it throbbed to purple
Parents shopping
And talking. Dad’s hanky
On my wound. There was no
Move to the isle with Bactine
Or iodine.
Just another wound on the boy
That festers years later.

Quote by Grotstien Poem by TA Delmore

When innocence has been deprived of its entitlement, it becomes a diabolical spirit.
(Grotstien 1984)




Light in the Foyer

That light will never be
the same. Its least intensity
was when the front door was open
and darkness absorbed all one hundred
watts of naked glow.
I remember the light as a liturgical
calendar.

After midnight mass
as we came through
the birth of Jesus
and swept steps.
Tangible gifts soon to be opened
but sleep first.

The porcelain switch
worked upstairs
to ward off nighttime strangers
or downstairs to uninvite
the evening. It had the same luminosity
for Easter Vigil inviting
Christ’s Resurrection.

It was the terminal light I saw
my father alive in; strapped to a gurney
dimmed like an over-exerted fuse
and no copper penny.

Quote by Robert Henri Poem by T A Delmore

Robert Hénri said in his wonderful book, The Art Spirit, written in 1923,
Do not let the fact that things are not made for you, that conditions are not as they should be, stop you. Go on anyway. Everything depends on those who go on anyway.


Missing Poster: Last seen 7/21/07


She was last seen in her room
By her mom-
Wearing a checkered skirt.

She was last seen by her dad-
Who is certain
Her eyes were always green.

She was last seen by her friends-
At school, carrying her blue
Backpack, slung low.

She was last seen by her brother-
From the adjoining heat vent
Near his bed.
She was naked.

She was last seen by her abductor
Who didn’t care
Who she was.

Poem: Thy will Not mine Quote: Walker Evans

Thy Will not Mine

Grace was weighted upon
By many books, stacked
In disarray,
showing just angles.
From memory: a Carvaggio
Angel, presenting conception
To a child unwed.

In presentation, the true weight
Of the universe penetrated
This virgin most pure.
She knew beyond years
That no amount of words
Laws, or skeptical husband
Would betray this moment.

All this mind you
From a stack of books
Waiting to be packed in storage.


Walker Evans said, "Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long."

Quote: Victor Frankel Poem: Post-Toddler Lesson

What is to give light must endure burning. Victor Frankel



Post-Toddler Lesson

The brown shoelace rests
Untied on the brown dining room chair
The lace looks like the ones that
Hold my baby shoes together today.

This is where I knelt
Maybe five but already
Sacramental- confessing to God:
“Help me make a bow and I’ll be good.”

The curse of the left handed is that
The teachers are right handed.
What they showed was frustration
Of labor knotted by a sibling bribe
If I got it right I could go or be left
Behind on a trip that now has no memory.

So many years later
Mom relinquished my baby shoes
Only after being placed in a brown bag
And only after a shoemaker had shined them.

What I received
Was un-bronzed
Shine of dull brown
Worn in heal and toe,
And goddammitt
Still untied!