Teak, The Poet Tree

Shakespeare                1 st to ( at least in all of western          Understand human psyche                            Culture ):                                 Understand human condition                                                                         Introspect and self examination           ...

  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

  Essential Reads TeakthePoetTree.blogspot.com   These are some of the entries in my blog, ones that are a good overview and a good place to start to see if you are interested in reading more. There are many humorous, meaningful, fascinating and even gut wrenching stories, poems, philosophical aphorisms, jokes and much more. Enjoy!   First Read: INTRO  AND THEN START WITH:  The Words then Meditation Home More Jokes and Stuff Epitaph Minnesota Seasons Push Mower Amusements Ireland Ode to the Fart Pant-ing; or My Genes have the Blues Somewhere there is a Boy Peanut Butter and Bacon The Puntiff St. Valentine’s Card The Fats of Life Topsy Turvey Hi Dad Flowers Airy Nothings PERHAPS THE REASON I WAS BORN, THE FOLLOWING: Spiritual Etymology Cleverisms-A Collection Cruise Diary Eight Eight Eighty Eight Cinnamon Battery Soap I Am I Will Miss You My Prayer My Tub Muses, Quotes Nina Simone  

  I Am                                                                                       By Teak Kilmer                                                                                           June 11, 2010   I wrote this poem in 20-25 minutes at my journaling group at Seward Drop in Center for the mentally ill. Most of my poems were written in this period of time at my writer’s or journaling group. Only magnetized words that were on a metal tray were us...

  “My Dream Vacation” – Our writer’s group prompt of the day By Teak Kilmer, July 7 th 2009   Oh, how many to choose from ─ a wilderness anything ─ a northern Minnesota lake (Jasper maybe), loons, grebes, teals, deer drinking near me from the lake, wolves howling at dusk, night dips in the lake, kayaking, bright aqua, yellow and even red darning needles and giant dragon flies staring at me five inches from my face ─ for 30-40 minutes, not letting me take it’s picture or Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness, or North Shore of Lake Superior, anywhere in pure nature, mountain hikes, swimming in the ocean ─ especially on that deserted beach in the Bahamas, Beaver Lake in Northern Pennsylvania that had beavers and turtles and fish galore and floating islands ─ and, of course bring on the flowers and the birds and butterflies and one more thing: being still and taking it all in in an appreciating heart. And, oh, who could forget Oquaga Lake with its unique pheromone aroma, its ...

  Letter From Julian     On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 12:22 PM , Julius Coffman < sacredhorse.storyteller@yahoo.com > wrote:   Hi Teak,   Thank you again for a wonderful lesson in the power of words. Recently I have been asked by several organizations to write a book about the last seven years of my life. A ghost writer may be the answer to my prayers. One of the challenges I face is the lack of meaning within the limitations of the written word. How does an individual express the experience of a double rainbow appearing during a thunderstorm? Where is the proper placement within the confining structures of a paragraph to mention the power of God and the euphoric existence of love? Stumbling blindly through a thesaurus I expand my high school vocabulary searching for words I have not yet written or experienced. Many times the laughter of doubt discourages my enchanted dreams to become who I have been birthed to be. An author of m...

  NO STINKIN AUTOGRAPHS! by Teak Kilmer circa 1999   “Wow!   That is powerful!   I want a copy!   May I have a copy?” “Sure.”   “I’ll be right back.   I’ll just go make a copy” Pacing while I wait for Faruk Abuzzahab, MD, PhD to return to his, my psychiatrist’s office.   He returns, flips the poem around, places it on his desk that is on the pile of books and papers nearest to me on his desk and says, “Sign it for me, please.”   I do, and I soon leave after I’ve told him there’s another one I just wrote, similar topic, more humorous.   “Be sure you bring it next time.”   “Yah, I’m intending to publish” I say. Seven and quarter hours later I realize I’ve just given out my autograph, then asked for and gave my autograph.   I’ve never sought an autograph, not from Jerry Lewis or Joe DiMaggio that I introduced myself to at 14 years of age (got Jerry’s picture – clown pose) and dove into DiMaggio in the pool a...

  Why Frogs? By Teak Kilmer August 3 rd 2002   Frogs don’t fly, don’t sing, don’t do much of anything ...   except to croak and peep and when scared, they leap sit on fronds on lilly ponds   but frogs don’t fly, don’t sing don’t do much of anything ...   save grow their webby toes sidelong snare yucky bugs with their tongue-tongs that are longer than most drinking songs and other frogs of whom they’re fond to they’ll snuggle-up and bond ...   but frogs don’t fly, don’t sing don’t do much of anything...   except do frog kicks to exercise deep in water, then they rise in purple, green and red some are even blonde it’s said   but frogs don’t fly, don’t sing don’t do much of anything ...   yet pose on covers of greeting cards for which on my visa I may charge and hereon write poems like this and wish you oodles of birthday bliss     HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Mabel  ...

  When a Senior in High School By Teak Kilmer     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 read that year: “Cyrano DeBergerac” and “Abe Lincoln in Illinois” – still to this day two of my great heroes, they – 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 ...

  TWISTED OLD SAYINGS   ·         Every dog is bliss ·         Honesty loves company ·         Children make the man ·         Jesus makes Jack a dull boy ·         Boys gather no moss ·          One man’s meat moves in mysterious ways ·         One hand deserves another ·         One good turn is worth two in the bush ·         The world will get you nowhere ·         A bird in the hand smells after three days ·         Fish and guests think alike ·         Familiarity is only skin deep ·         God flies whe...

Topsy Turvey March 19, 2009 … (25 minutes to write) By Teak Kilmer, SEE    A Prompt for Cursive Writer’s Group: Think of Phrases Common, Make Observations Uncommon   Waste not; want not … want is waste late night eating feeds my hazardous waist   If you can’t say anything good, say nothing at all … but you can always say something good   When you are drawing a blank, what colors do you use?   Picture this: a person head over heels…do you have it yet? “Heels over head” would be posture akimbo!   A prisoner is one or thing that im-prisons A prisonee is one incarcerated! Hence describe: “escapee” and “escaper”.   Finish the sequence: tenth, ninth, eighth, seventh, sixth, fiveth , fourth … threeth, twoth, oneth .  Note – we mispronounce “two” (it should be obvious that two does not rhyme with too and neither does to) and “one”, should rhyme with; bone, cone, phone, and stone   War is Hell so why are we so in love with it? War is proof o...

  To Richard Rainbolt ─ Who Helped Me to Ask Only For the Healing of My Perceptions By Teak Kilmer, SEE On the day you left this plane and planet: May 13, 2011     How fitting it is that Richard would be the first in our original Course in Miracles core group to make the passage ; He has always led the way when it comes to passages; He knew them because he loved and lived them and (in soft, calm voice) refrained them reassuringly   I have envied him this and wondered how he got it so completely I realize now as I sit here that I had wanted to ask him how he knew , what made his epiphany become him, but I let distraction get my attention instead of the question that will not be asked   Three decades ago after a Unity Church service, Arne Wasberg followed me to asking Richard to lead a Course in Miracles group on Sunday nights He rejoiced in the offer and the opportunity and in the task, and we basked in his light, his … p...

  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 pain, exhaustion barely do enable   because these and more are due you no matter the wage A thought of you propels me   I am with you and I am    

  To His ‘Wholiness’   The Pun-tiff By Teak Kilmer, SEE November 25, 2017   Our friend Roger was born physically challenged, unable ever to even ride a bike,   but he is a person of marvelous spiritual beauty and a punster extraordinaire.   Know we a one who’s very punny and by this stroke is very funny His talents in this regard hoist all comers by such petard   Pun-tificates does he this lad till no one round him could be sad lifts he one’s spirits, rustles one’s belly turning all about to rosy jelly   As lad, had no skill in such as punting   thus became the class punner which all do know is much more funner He does this art sans pun- or pun-cil … just spews at will from oral enuncils   His utterances disarm with pun-ch and beauty as trippingly he does this humor duty our Roger Curtner: one man pun-demic he thus doberman pun-cher and pun-ny tat we gift aglee   as off they swi...

  To Albe Julius Meiers, A Tribute On His Ninety-First Birthday And A Eulogy That We Get To Watch Him Hear By Teak Kilmer September 12, 2010       Albe has lived life fulfilled, fulfilled of ham and chicken wings two hours taken breakfasting of victuals myriad, bold and bolstering Chewing he could teach to cows, but chew he must to swallow things A cause methinks of his longevity, and since he eats just anything that sates his palette, rich and sweet in amounts bewildering for a man of such shallow verticality and slight of height he brings   Humor fills him too and us in amusements by wit and behaviors oft astonishing hung up in downspouts, bicycle and trash can tricks, in these for us a Fairy King anyone in front of him would soon be his pal; he’d know about them nearly everything even more than food he has appreciated and been most excellent at chattering a man of gratitude and joy despite life challenges and depression’s u...

  This, My Final Cycle By Teak Kilmer July 1, 2010 at Cursive Writers’ Group   ...written using only the words provided on a tray of magnetized verse to be ; and randomly furnished to each us by Julie, our leader du jour, just before commencing this piece, our assignment–fourth in a series using only the words provided on the trays.     I am that almost moment of serenity a hair away by laugh or music from the surreal truth that makes doubt will its way to grace, a choice, the parent of Spirit’s knowing, sustaining beauty through prayer and meditation   giving hope of birth (of this life saving) husbanding health, relief, but life looms by deep cycles I walk them, asking why, why so hard my soul to understand, to gently pamper feeling that I would use surgery to remove, but must accept?   I would protect my young fiery pleasure as less aesthetic skin and self do show the thing to hardly I can bear as last ...

  The Price of Poetry By Teak Kilmer Circa 1998   Hello there, Mr. Amazon.com I’m hoping your site is the one from I can buy some serious pain put my psyche in a twit of strain and by so doing, great verse I will pen thus be a great poet and tragedienne but please Mr. Amazon.com my meager purse therefrom to exact but a cheap price … take from my flesh but a thin slice                      Yours sincerely,                    Teak Kilmer   Dear Teak, by e-mail you got us and pain we do have right up to your epiglotis but if writer you would be of verse expressed extraordinarily then excruciating anguish you must know in thought and feeling and even in your re me dough so in this we’ll not reduce the price nor otherwise be nice for only sacrifi...

  Did You Buy Any Roses Today? A Valentine Poem for planet Earth, choose love or Armageddon77 Just before war was declared on Iraq and the following day we were to have march at Uptown in Minneapolis, MN. By Teak Kilmer February 14, 2003   Did you buy any roses today , odorless, soul-less,   chemical roses, hybridized, ‘pesticided’ fertilized roses dipped in preservative for the long trip to your home, roses that are killing and illing Ecuadorians roses produced for just 17 cents that you buy for dollars … three to 18 for profits egregious   for world corporations while humans environment and decency are pummeled?           Did you buy any roses today?   Did you say it with flowers or will you say it with scruples? Will the protest tomorrow be where your love is given? 2 PM around Uptown ; we’ll be raging, bemoaning corruption and evil, corruption and evil in the name   of s...