I have written poetry since I was a little child. In fact, I started writing lyrics to songs in grade school. I later discovered that I often wrote my own lyrics to pop songs. I was very depressed back then, even writing a song entitled "Goodbye Cruel World," which alarmed some of my teachers.

I've continued to write poetry throughout my life, experimenting with cut-ups and other experimental techniques pioneered by heroes such as William Burroughs and long rambling verses a la Jack Kerouac. I discovered haiku in the late '90s, and that remains my favorite format, though I write three haiku and string them together as one piece.

Here's one quick example:

This place, dear friend, I

return now, but different

open and happy

Will these green riches

fall into my lap, winter?

My mind says yes, yes

Fall birds now flocking

Their songs bring me smiles and tease

one more prayer out.

But I also write in a totally free-form format. The first rains of 2006 reminded me of this poem, written in October 1999 as I moved into a new apartment in midtown Sacramento to finish writing my book "Reaping The Wind," which came out in early 2001. I am now beginning yet another energy book, this one entitled "Introduction To Energy."

First Rain

These next poems were all written this past summer, when my sweetheart was away in France for one month. We didn't realize how much we got used to each other until we were apart for that period of time. The photos included here were all taken with my Pentax digital camera. Enjoy!

So far away...yet I see your smile in the flowers, witness your wonder at the call of the Bewick's wren, the towhee and the golden-crowned sparrows.

The sun came out once today, and while this place is empty, quiet, your signatures live on in your love of style and attention to details, still filling entire rooms with your scent. I tease your perfumes out of the pillows, remembering how you feel in my brown hands.

Moon making waves out in the ocean, blanket of fog now tucking us in. A new day waits, or so demands the summer full moon. We are on the cusp of something wonderful and wild. I am with you as you are with me. Together -- yet apart, connected and yet so incredibly free.

To now light and tend to the fire, whose furtive desire to burn forever is allowed, and even encouraged, to be...

Investing in myself

finally after all those

tears and years, now gone

In its place, unknowns

but my energy is more

free, contained and strong

Redwood canopy --

stream sparkling, tall ghosts nod and

cradle feathers white.

Time passing, summer

feels more special than ever -- stars yelling at night.

The so-busy mind, trails, flowers, birds, love, calling...

giving in, living.

Kisses of freedom, the proud ocean always knows, to listen is gift...

You, whose morning smile beams like sunshine...I lift the blankets, and you reveal the curves that define a classic beauty, a vibrant vixen. Yes, we are aging, but the fire in our hearts burns brighter than today's oh-so-black-and-cut-me-here youth. We bounce with laughter, letting each bird song have its place in our life. We relax in the knowledge that NOW is what counts. To learn all this now is a blessing. To finally act, instead of endless teasing, to give one's soul -- again -- to the belief in you, us, and the world, bowing to our parents, making way for the next generation, the children of doom. Can we rescue the ideals? Can we hold hands and marvel at our trial balloons? Can we torture our love one more time, right now, on this blanket so warm from the summer sun? Can I love you deeper than the sky and ocean? Can I?

Missing you grows into a pain that your pillow cannot release. I awake, in a fragile state, as if a thin layer of glass, not clear, but etched with the letters of your name, smashes into tiny specks of the rainbow, or a sunset, or a deep and dark lake. Fragile, small and alone. So much comes up on the big, wide movie screen...Your own movie, the constant editing and endless desire to make sense of it all.

Mercury may be in retrograde, but the backpedaling creates a unique space in which one can let go, even further, as chaos reigns, and wanting becomes another eternity. In this tiny speck of your life, the movie is still going, the authentic you, now knowing more but still less than what is necessary for you to reach the ultimate spiritual plateau. Then again, on this hot July day, after you've indulged in so many forbidden rituals, all wrapped up in so much meaning, and yet just another bunch of stuff to let go of. All I can think about right now is holding on to your voluptuous and smooth frame. One day soon...This longing is real, unqualified, unfettered, and utterly and intensely surreal.