Teak, The Poet Tree

  GRIEF’S GIFT By Teak Kilmer   A steel tray of magnetized words was passed to each of us at our Cursive Writers Group.   I chose to write a poem using only the words that were on the tray;   Therefore, please read the following notes explaining italicized words previous to reading the poem … “She” is Spirit and my wife Jo Anne. “Language” here refers to thoughts, the busy mind. “… the end” refers to a belief in an end: death. “… little eye” refers to the third eye.   She says: “Find me a dark tear In there’s the pink caress of Heaven Release your grief, Sweet Sugar Moon Laugh tiny, soft and happy rhapsodies   Delicious rivers ever innocent as merry mornings…search… wishing to be you   Touch the peace, the sleep, the dance Touch the singing sea Look home; listen to your work   Find the hero universe; it is at once your ward and will and wild   Be forever in between Language and the end   And so your little eye in choice with me – forever still        

Cruise Diary    By Teak Kilmer   This is the first poem I ever wrote (Nov. 1996) - beyond greeting cards.  A friend had given me “Writing Down the Bones” years earlier. On this Royal Caribbean cruise, I started reading it; began a poetic diary; read this part of same at the amateur competition; was stunned at the degree of positive audience response and sold fourteen copies @ $15.  The first person offered me $100 for a copy: I told him that was too much as I would offer it for less to others.  He stuffed $50 into my shirt pocket and said that he would not pay me any less.  He then offered to support my wife and me on his dude ranch, so that I could focus just on poetry writing.  My wife didn’t want to leave Minnesota because her family is here which I supported, but I sure missed a chance.     Of snorkeling I’ll begin this cruising journalese with fish in coats of many colors and personalities floating in the water to the rhythm of the earth as my soul is gently nurtured into moments

  What a Poem Is By Teak Kilmer   My Mind is a poem My Heart is a poem My Soul is a poem My body is hungry … I sell cars  

  To Jo Anne on July 22, 2009 Our 20 th Anniversary By Teak Kilmer When I am with you, I am When I am not with you I think of you and I am I see you in the garden my heart lifts. I am happy for you you tend and weed me too   I rub you when you hurt make dinners; remove the trash even when I am scarcely present because these and more are due you no matter the wage A thought of you propels me   I am with you and I am    

  I WILL MISS YOU By Teak Kilmer   I will miss you.   Did I kiss you?   Did I hug you long enough to last through parades of moments distancing this adieu ever farther into the past? Did we share sentiments that matter – thoughts that so often whisper from heart and soul?   Did we let them touch our lips and fall as rain       thus bridging yearning hearts again?    

  A WALK IN THE WOODS By Teak Kilmer   Flowers with bright faces smiling in full circles whites and yellows, red-oranges and purples marching in procession, saluting, often waving We can tell they’re glad to see us   Ask if we’ll be staying        Trees—in grand abundance reaching out to say “You’re welcome!”… like Great Uncles, tall and weathered   streams and lakes that offer solace lily ponds, marsh and comfort songs of loon, grinning red fox vulture’s flight that puts a startle vales and views of panorama hum of tires at the pavement   and fishing line bent by lake lone angler there for Spirit’s sake    

  Teak, The Poet Tree My name is Teak Kilmer, well really, it's Thalas Garadus Groospeck Macelious Quackenbush Michael Meiers Kilmer Jr. (and that's the reason I’m an alcoholic). Truth be told, these are more names than are on my birth certificate, but I grew up believing these were all my names (a joke my family played on me). I really am an addict and have emotion sickness from trauma and genetics. My life has been a wild but challenging ride. I have accomplished much, met nearly 50 famous people, and have a plethora of amazing stories. I'm also an observer of life, a poet, writer, copy editor, amateur 'spiritual' etymologist, fine furniture artist, former and co-founder of the Minnesota Woodworkers' Guild (now second largest in the nation), reformer of the American massage equipment industry from basically nearly junk quality to having maybe the best equipment anywhere.    At age 15, in 1956, I successfully began a civil rights movement in my high schoo

  THE WORDS By Teak Kilmer   I love the way the words are strung about the neck of my mind ─ like ladies in waiting that but moments before stood mute   “Did I hear you speak,” I seem to say. “Is it time to play?   Oh, words, oh lovely words ─ my gratitude, my dance you made me love you and, indeed, I was born to love you”   Thus in my heart I have pledged to you forever … room and board you are my mission and my adored Now please read "Meditation".  

  THE RIDE HOME By Teak Kilmer   God, thank you for my struggles for they make me face the music and you are the music ─ the ride home   without struggles, there is no road back without struggles, there is only wandering struggling drives the bus to the terminal … where ecstasy abides   Struggles, I thank you, I embrace you You and joy and I and God … inseparable, in peace forevermore    

  THE PUNTIFF By Teak Kilmer   To my dear friend Roger Curtner * Know we a one who’s very punny His talents in this regard hoist all comers by such petard [1] ** and by this stroke is very funny   Puntificates does he this lad till no one round him could be sad Lifts he one’s spirits, rustles one’s belly turning all those about him to rosy jelly   Unskilled in punting, he became the class punner which all do know is much more funner He does this art sans ‘pun’ or ‘puncil’ just spews at will from oral ‘enuncil’   His utterances disarm with punch and beauty as trippingly he does this humor duty Our Roger Curtner, one man pundemic he our doberman puncher, our punny tat gift of glee   Alas now off they swift him to the punitentiary. *Roger was born disabled; never learned to even ride a bike. ** [1] A petard is X. "Hoist with his own petard " is a phrase from a speech in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet that has bec

  THE PUSH MOWER By Teak Kilmer   I am the push mower I am the lawnmower manual I am that which lays low the lawn   I was purchased at the “Come and Go” pawn shop by Thalas Garadus “Rod” Kilmer Sr. to be pushed by Thalas Garadus “Teak” Kilmer Jr.   Big Thalas would have Little Thalas push me around, lending his seeming willfulness some character ballast   Slight other parenting ever was noted but in this and snow shoveling the ledger was bloated   Thalas Jr cared not a wit for me but round the house and up the bank went we   He’d tighten my bolts and adjust my blades as the quality of my clippings fade until alas my blades would get unsharp I’d be hopping about like Twyla Tharp   So I’d get loaded into the ’47 Hudson Hornet’s trunk by Thalas Little and Thalas Big (the one who’s ever nightly drunk) to return a few days hence to again mow down that grass by fence   And by the neighbor’s driveway and garage and to the back

  SURRENDER By Teak Kilmer   There is nothing to do but give into the dying   So the wildebeest goes to live in the lion   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is the second poem I ever wrote ─ while standing in the Caribbean ocean waves in Puerto Rico, I wrote this on the back, inside cover of “Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Wood.  

  THE DEAD SEA By Teak Kilmer   The Dead Sea reeks because its goodness does not leak out   and so it is with blokes who help not lesser fortuned folks      

  SO MUCH LOVE By Teak Kilmer   God waits for us in our humility And in the stillness … fills us with so much love that good is all we are capable of

  SOMEWHERE THERE IS A BOY By Teak Kilmer   Somewhere there is a boy who doesn’t love a ball   A girl too would be rare in such but a boy whose extreme inbred edness must preclude, disassemble and stamp out all together my aforementioned declarative statement   Nowhere is there a boy who doesn’t love a ball   How could millions of years of heredity aimed toward inevitable ball movement (this spheroid love affair) be bludgeoned out of his spiritually guided perfection? What had joined the ball and boy surely no force can rend asunder   And is there a ball that doesn’t love a boy?   To be held dribbled batted fetched served booted thrown squeezed spiked caught coveted even caressed, slept with and loved more inevitable than life ball and boy more bonded than gorilla glue’s finest achievement   Find a boy find a ball find joy   Damn, where did I put that ball?

  POET’S LAMENT By Teak Kilmer   My mind is a poem My heart is a poem My soul is a poem My body is hungry   I sell cars

  MEDITATION (to be preceded by “WORDS”) By Teak Kilmer   Let even the words go, especially the words go be still; be very … very … still   I listened for an instant…to the sound of no sound but, oh, how words, how thoughts entice me   Why, how does stillness seem so lonely when surely it is where You, the all of All awaits my coming Home?

  MY BREATH By Teak Kilmer   My breath deceives me every night   but every morn I brush it bright

  LOVE IS ALL THERE IS By Teak Kilmer   Love is all there is    that does not wound Love is all there is    that does not reopen wounds   We cannot fix me     We cannot fix you but we can love you    and we can love me   And feel Spirit's love    in gentle kisses sliding down our cheeks     

  I HAVE BIPOLAR By Teak Kilmer   I have bipolar. You’ll find me in the Lost and Profound Department, where it never pains but it roars, but…where fodder for my poems is stored - genetic twins by mutual consent, my cross, my glory, by purge, enlightenment.   Since pre-birth I now do ascertain I have been chained to wax and wane… as by hell as well as heaven sent though less merriment than malcontent; Grief and rage, fear and shame I have explored as the Maloneys and the Kilmers so forbore but also by chastisement I believed my self incompetent and became also a raging dissident   My mother in despair’s moraine imprisoned by the State in shame – locked in by doors and bars and argument: “too belligerent and not sufficient penitent,” as again in seeking schizophrenia’s medications more too far she went to opposing zombie state at home restore   My father (when I eighteen) at fifty-seven (and bankrupt) went and for me alone had no pre death comment so as before we did not ‘untwixt’ the tw

  IRELAND By Teak Kilmer   Air fresh, food organic Spring water on tap Dogs unleashed Giving right away Catholics and Humanists   Plants everywhere Nested with flowers Ninety-five-percent countryside Towns of charm   Eire ─ every moment a new scene extraordinaire and new climate a new gasp, a sigh, a breath a bliss, a love affair   Endorphins flooding my ‘Cingulatus’ ‘supremulatus’   A really brief poem by myself Thalas Garadus “Teak” Kilmer Jr

  I AM (See Grief’s Gift, as again I chose to write using only the words that were on the tray) By Teak Kilmer   I am in the moment of no other time in the place of no other place I Am   I am drawn to Nature’s Love as Your Love has Drawn me May my words ripple others’ waters as You, the Great One, ripple me I Am   The Breaths of Angels paint clouds of Images distinctly You and I too am those Images for You Breathe me as You Breathe the Angels I Am   I hope to die to life before I die from life to pass away from doubt and fear, and by Love and Joy and Peace, Live Truly I Am   I Am in Your Arms and laughing at Your Jokes and making Love with You and playing games of Little Children with You Forever I Am  

  HIS SECRET By Teak Kilmer   He was astounded by his own wit lived life in a merry fit his will he had surrendered to that which he pretended   He was a secret he kept from himself    

  EPITAPH By Teak Kilmer   I have come and I have seen beauty everywhere   soaked up fragrances of plumeria, lilac and peony and hand crushed leaves of autumn, newly mown grass breezes once embracing sea and pine tree now wafting through and all around us   I have imbibed the muses Van Gogh, Basquiat, thunderstorms and Rumi Walt Whitman, Ella Fitzgerald and Yo-Yo Ma, Bob Dylan and blizzards frozen water crystals shaped like ferns on the windows sensuous and sensual intimacies of soul and form   Jazz! Oh, joyful and make-you-move jazz!   I’ve made mud pies, built sandcastles swum in streams, rivers, lakes in seas, in oceans navy blue and turquoise green climbed, trekked and skied mountains   Yet I have been moved most by peace and joy and love        

  BURNING By Teak Kilmer   The evening Jo Anne and I first attended a NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) meeting, I borrowed from the lending library “Touched with Fire” by Kay Redfield Jamison. I had at that time a deep and abiding depression. That same night I began this tale of those famous poets and writers, artists and others. I wondered if I should be reading about depression, as doing so may worsen it, but I also was mesmerized by the stories of these famous poets and writers, artists and others and began to find myself compelled to read on and even to write in the margins ─ lightly , of course, and in pencil (so I could erase the evidence!).     I was at that time diagnosed with major depression and was envious that I was not diagnosed as Bipolar, since a definite majority of mood disorder creative types are Bipolar, as Jamison was demonstrating. It turns out I had been misdiagnosed. You know the bit: eight years and 3-5 doctors to get the correct diagnosis

  ANDY By Teak Kilmer   Andy ─ tee shirt, sweatshirt, plaid flannel shirt thick cotton zip-up jacket shirt unzipped white, maroon, dark green with black and yellow stripes deep blue; dark cap tilted over eyes   Has to aim chin at us to see us which he does occasionally sort of, kind of askance, fleetingly when it’s his turn to share and less often when another of us ‘froot’ ‘lupes’ takes a turn.   God, we’re funny; I can’t get this smirk off the lower end of my face I’ve found myself a playground among the often miserable, the mentally-genetically oppressed   Andy is what you get. He’s who shows up he’s been ground round and down till all that’s left is just little old he. Andy’s one of us ‘a’moldering’ candles on this party cake of distorted life   We have a lot to be grateful for, proud of and amazed at We know a bliss by overcoming, a victory that arrives from having one’s emotional face repeatedly used as a ball bat Andy’s a regular guy as real as mother’s milk and as honest as hun

  When a senior in high school, I wrote a term paper – stayed up all night, read four books on the Battle of Gettysburg and wrote the paper -   in   one   fell swoop, or as I like to say, one swell foop . That afternoon I turned that paper in to my English teacher, Ms. what’s her name (Oh, God, what is her name?) who honored me with four A+’s on that paper.   I was stunned, just as I had been when she choose me to read the leads in both the plays we did that year: “Cyrano DeBergerac” and “Abe Lincoln in Illinois ” – still to this day two of my great heroes – both for their deeds and for their impeccable eloquence, their love of words and truth and justice and all virtue”.    Never before had a teacher had faith in me; all the others were indifferent or humiliating or punitive, seeing only my dysfunction that stemmed from my errant genes and family horrors, but did not notice my talent nor especially my crying out for love which my actions truly were.   So again I had been recogni