Teak, The Poet Tree

  The Words By Teak Kilmer Circa 2008   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 pledge to you forever … room and board  

  Meditation By Teak Kilmer Some day late in 2004 Mental health journaling group     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 await my coming Home.

  In the Winter Now by Teak Kilmer     It is in the winter now When I must walk the path within Softly must I walk, so I can hear my story Slowly walk, so I may comprehend   With temperatures of degrees far too few And photons so few and so obtusely angled And I, by illness long, easily brought to chill   I am locked within with only silence and Whisperings of the ancestors to teach and comfort Guide and nudge my rocking chair   No rivers here, no birds’ songs, no breezes Telling me stories about truth, about mystery   I must rather recollect these and remember too The present, the gift most precious     And its peace that holds me dear      

  In a Nutshell A Story of One with Emotion Sickness by Teak Kilmer   I was born disturbed, oversensitive.   I was agitated, cried a lot, banged my head into the crib walls and onto the floor, and this continued through my infancy.   In fact I soon reverted into the head-banging behavior when my father always punished me whenever there was any disturbance with either of my siblings.   I never got to defend myself, and I was always sent to my room – banished until morning.   I would cry, scream and bang my head in protest into the bedroom wall until so exhausted I could do it no more, fall asleep, wake up and start over.   No one came to my rescue. To this day the left side of the back of my head is pushed in   Parenting was nonexistent to brutal.   My mother had been variously diagnosed including with paranoid schizophrenia.   By age of seven, I had lost what there had been of my mother. When at home, she was a vegetable who lived on the couch and in the bed.   She was

  Peace on Earth By Teak Kilmer   Peace on Earth, good will to men Was a slipping of the pen Peace on Earth toward men of good will Was the lesson and is so still

  How August 8, 1988 (8,8,88) Came To Yield 22 By Teak Kilmer, May 20, 2010     Minneapolis, MN, winter nineteen eighty-eight…Christmas season; Jo Anne and I had met on two-fourteen of that year at a Valentine’s Day party – twenty two years ago; it’s now twenty-ten, ten years after the millennium change, you remember – the year the world’s computers did not blow up the planet, but alas I regress.   At the Valentine party, we had but fleeting interchange, and I was still in the year of abstinence from romantic, sexual and economic co-dependence recovery type thing; but she was beautiful and played sing-a-ling piano songs, and I sang like I used to only at piano bars, only this time I could stand up at the same time. Her smile and her spirit were as bright as summer sunshine, but true to my pledge, I did not play the flirt; yet I was noticeably happier just by being near her.   Then in July of that same year, I attended A Course In Miracles spiritual retreat in Wisconsi

  HOME by Teak Kilmer, circa 1996                 You ask me why I make my home in a mountain wood   The wild rose sweetens the wind that gently strokes the cottonwood    Mariah greets me daily with the leafy hands on limbs of birches        The water falls and streams and ruffles everlasting mantras                         Salmon climb glistening stairways and                       family style, serve themselves for winter                        so black bears have Thanksgiving dinner           My lawn is mowed and trees are pruned by moose and deer            Evergreens and mountain peaks are my abundant steeples                     Squirrels and chipmunks, marmots and the rest                          nibble up the crumbs that naturally I left           Birds praise God with their melodic praying without ceasing                      and are thus rewarded with the gift of flight   I am at once at home and in awe as I, Thalas “Teak” Kilmer, re

  Happy Birthday, Jo Anne Meiers Kilmer by Teak Kilmer August 9, 2013     How grand that love be so inclined So fruitfully, thrillingly and divine As that which comes from you to me Playfully, pursuantly, stupendously   There never has been one like you That could life-long set this one thus a’bloom You drown me, crown me in felicity Magnificently, adroitly and abundantly   And though this poem compared to thee Much illustrates an insufficiency It is heart-felt, and hopefully , amusingly Iridescently, sincere-iously and oh so ever lovingly   Says how I am honoredly …   Forever yours,   Teak

  Grief’s Gift By Teak Kilmer Thursday, August 20 th 2008   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 ,   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         “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.            

God is Love By Teak Kilmer   God, you are but Love, and Love I’ll be Or, by God, I serve not thee.

  I AM By Teak Kilmer (See Grief’s Gift, as again I chose to write using only the magnetized words that were on a metal tray and did so in only twenty to twenty-five minutes)   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  

  From Nightmare to Dream By Teak Kilmer October 15, 2009   Written from a tray of magnetic poetry words using only the words on the tray (except I added “embrace”) at our Cursive Writers’ Group. The poem was written (and is unchanged) in under twenty five minutes.   A hopist, I a weary dream recall and do now … smear it with love drawing out the pain screaming in existential ... angst … and passion   Name that sore monument Oh listen, gentle bird a trick of your past on your little canvas lies   but to will new fruit that would perform treats of gratitude Believe your heart becomes but grace   Make your garden be faith in easy change to good Embrace your luck with deep work balanced in pleasing subjects   Demand not peace; let it relax … into you, so compassion must beneath us fall    

  More Stories By Teak Kilmer   The Lynn Flowers story (the names have been retained to incriminate the guilty).   I lived in a halfway house after alcohol treatment and after we graduated from the program, we had Wednesday night groups after which we would go to Denny’s restaurant. One night about eight of us were sitting at a large round table. Bob (last name forgotten) came up to me with a monkey dish full of whip cream pretending to threaten to throw it in my face I suggested he didn’t want to see my violent side (just kidding).   Bob went over and sat down in his seat across from me and put the monkey dish down between him and his girlfriend Lynn.   At one point Bob was looking away from Lynn and Cynthia O’Grady whispered to her and motioned to throw the whip cream in Bob’s face when he turned around.   When he turned around, he was appropriately splattered with white creamy stuff.   Everybody was laughing so hard Lynn especially who fell over backwards in her chair, a

  Dancing with Nina Simone by Teak Kilmer   I danced with Nina Simone at Cornell University after her concert there c1960. Today I heard (on the radio – KFAI) Nina in concert, playing, singing and discussing her life and relationships with Dr Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King. I had just uttered the beginnings of this sentiment that follows, and as fate would have it, Nina was expressing similar views in a recorded civil rights concert in the company of the Kings.     I know why you call yourself Black, Roy , but you’re not black. Now, hang in here with me.   You are brown , you are dark brown . If I call you “Black”, what do I do with our brothers, our brothers and our sisters who are caramel, tan and beige, as Nina Simone herself calls you. You/they are not shades of grey.   And another thing: in America if you are ½ black, you’re black. If you’re ¼ black, you’re black; 1/8 th black, you’re black, If a hair on your head curls or superior f

A Tribute to Marilyn Budde By Teak Kilmer     Vivacity overflowing, laughing lady friend and noble human, teacher and bringer-along of needy children student … and a darn good example of A Course in Miracles marrier of the most undomesticated unrestrained, uninhibited, frenzied accident-waiting-to-happen Bill person   In this alone you have shown not only extreme courage but also Divine Wisdom demonstrated trust in intuition let love and possibility rule led by Spirit to the altar of Watch out world; here we come   By just this and other steps into faith you have proven that Peace and happiness are the fruits of surrender You show us the face of the Holy demonstrate pro-sperity in its original intention – to live in the spirit   You are a grand friend and companion on the walk in Truth In all that you do and play you make love to life and fill us up in the doing   In fondest salute to you and our friendship, we are per

To Bill Vogel Upon His 80th by Teak Kilmer   One Outrageous (meaning to get the rage out) weird (originally meant being yourself ) silly (meant and means being abundant ) human man person   This particular slice of Homo Sapiens … possessed by elves and fairies wrapped in conundrums imbedded in bewilderments pervaded in confusions   and ever in the wonder … are we … at what he is going to do next what he’ll say next and to whom he’ll say it Oh, and when he does say you better listen … intently, carefully   Bill will not; I repeat will not pause for breath nor other interval but headlong and down hill speed bumps be damned This incredible love button will recite an entire novel into a single unpunctuated sentence … if interruption or exhaustion, or Marilyn in lingerie does not first show a brilliant face   humor, born of whimsy and absurdity in the realization that we are all ridiculous all barely kept afloat in our boat cal

  As Summer Wraps My Senses By Teak Kilmer Sung to the tune of: When Irish Eyes are Smiling     As summer wraps my senses with fragrance bright as noon   by the grace of nature’s music by love expressed in blooms   As summer crowds my senses critters dart and flit and play.   Yes, it’s summer drowns my senses in our DNA Resume .

  A Better Kind of Wit By Teak Kilmer       In our delight at meeting mirror of one another exchanged we wits and whimsies, those entertainments that matter to the matters grey but paused and by consideration flung aside our disregards, careless familiarities and contempts to find instead within our hearts…contents and merrily went round about our fertile blessing of the mind; yet fed as much with kindness in its kind.

  Surrender By Teak Kilmer     There is nothing to do but give into the dying So the wildebeast goes to live in the lion