Teak, The Poet Tree

  Dressed Up in Terror By Teak Kilmer April 15, 2005     Sharon, our journal group leader today, gives us several choices of what to write about; these ideas come from opening randomly to pages of a Pablo Neruda book of poems and from Writing Down the Bones by Julia Cameron.   The choices: Describe your typical morning ; use any of the following to write about – The words are...”Remember”…”Dressed   up in terror” and “ sighing”.   I employed all of these in my ten minutes of writing – actually printing ─ so I could read it.       I remember being dressed up in terror, sighing That’s how I start my mornings   The words that awaken me are like the ones that slept with me They ran my night and now demand my day   They want to tell me what to think “Who’s in charge here, I Howl?!” “We are”, they say Some days I scream “The hell you are Get away from me”   “I need more sleep but you badger me I cannot lie here with you I do not sleep

  Oquaga Lake By Teak Kilmer June 30th, 2014     The Sense of smell was given us to beckon or repel   Oquaga Lake   Leaving Binghamton , New York on Old Route 17 from home the grasses, pines and wildflowers coalesced evermore into Joi de vries for the soul of this young boy – so sensitive, so pummeled by the city by its coal smoke, exhaust fumes its pressures and sweaty toils   I never think of home Twenty-one St. John Avenue without recollections of my paranoid schizophrenic, drug-vegetized … or raging, seldom bathed, cold creamed despairing mother’s odors … oft exaggerated by her anxiety of having to face another moment … or was that my angst infused aroma? Certainly both   But, oh, Oquaga Lake – that smell of sea weed pheromones decaying flora, sun drenched ions, ozone and dirt roads, abandoned tennis courts cedar shakes, our joy in being and playing in the wild out of doors the rotting of old garages and

Peter Schmitz Eulogy By Teak Kilmer December 27, 2004     Do you hear me weeping, Peter Schmitz? See me writhing? Feel my anguish? Word of your illness had not reached me Now, they tell me, you are gone from here   The shock makes bright and loud my grief makes memories roll out like carpets of ways that you have touched me I honor you with tears and recollections of your wonder   I cannot yet imagine our Seward without your joy to see me – greeting me asking how I’m doing with sincerity so pure so assuring and so easy   You were constant in all the many virtues that showed up as Peter Schmitz in wisdom, mystery, vision, intuition, authenticity and service …  justice, kindness, humor, talent … in writing and in art but mostly in being fully human   Love always preceded you and fulfilled you You embraced who God made you and all the courage that that demanded You determined for your Self what Truth and Spirit are and stood in that shining light before us, beside us and within us   You

  Poet’s Intent By Teak Kilmer   My head is full of cleverness My purse is full of naught When I but untwixt this twain I’ll have all that I ought

  The Most Popular Penchant of Poets By Teak Kilmer   There is a joy in writing a rhyme that comes into my head for the fleetingest time but most often by far I’m within myself fighting   the poet’s pastime of greatest delighting

  Our Dear Cathy By Teak Kilmer A Birthday Tribute May 23 rd , 2010   Your love and grace and caring your prose, your laugh and daring you’re reporting how you’re faring being honest without sparing bringing comfort to my despairing when from Myself I’d been wayfaring   When we see you, smiles we are wearing because humanity’s committee you are chairing to all of us bring unsparing upbearing this despite and because of your childhood ensnaring into emotion’s depths to your inner kid so scaring from your true and joyful self-uptearing   that few have been as brave as you, forswearing temptations to let these of your soul be tearing You’ve taken sensibility and pain to go tale-bearing to one and many, as your friends (as we) are underbearing   and so together help those alike by stories sharing with all the love available for sparing you are aglow and glaring     And I and we love you: we are this happy birthday day thus declaring

  Oh, Thomas, My Thomas A Love Song to My Friend On your Birthday June 17, 2010 By Teak Kilmer     Oh, Thomas, my Thomas You fulfill the promise of friendship, of kinship, of companionship that’s blue chip stewardship and lots’a lip. thus cheerio and pip pip!!   For your love and support it’s with you I comport You’re a major seaport, resort and (davenport?) of my loneliness to deport What a sport!!   Your laughter and your gaity upraise my joculaity , for which I have insatiaiety You soothe my blues and greyity when I feel like Humpty Dumpity You’re the Highness of happieity Oh, whoopdidoieity!!   Your forgiveness and understanding are on my heart and soul a’landing bringing grace and hope within me standing whilst you are humanitarianding to myself and all who would be banding into a life supporting outfit from yucky to outstanding Yea, the world’s a better place because you’re my friend foreveranding!!