Bliss

My life is not pre-ordained
explained by sterile systems or chance,
It is strange is it not?
We feel it find it as we grope through
mornings moist mist and cold snow,
Joy spent in a hedonist hour is never a sin
since we find it feel it feed
it inside our core,
In a child’s first smile a tender kiss shared
In the way rain on leaves magnifies
a green vein so
coursing with life growing and
gaining strength gentling within,
Belonging to each other love is never a miss!
This journey we take is searching for
Seeking and sharing sourcing our
truly blessed gifts..
So come with me now and follow your bliss.

CP21/22

I am offering a Mass for myself

I am a Mass

offered to no one

no soul

but myself

I occupy my place

this space and time

I move through time

and space

I have

capacity to think

to drink

and eat what I

choose

I am Eucharist of sea

and sand

I defy

what other men

planned

I am in

a pact

with wild winds

that blow

with he who

has sinned

and knows

the ways of the

old forests

I have a body

occupying space

I am a creation

of time and space

a work of art

not fiction nor myth

I exist

human made flesh

I offer myself

as Mass

Chris Papps 2021

Aldinga beach

Halloween

recorded a Halloween thing for ⁦@kexp⁩ and they needed a spooky photo…didn’t have to look any harder than the “scary doll promo shot” aka “what I actually look like”

She
Coyly
Admits
Rock
Yodellers

Defer
Or
Linger
Lovingly

Putting
Her
Onerous
Trials
Off

When
Hersh
Announces
This

Instantly

Loyalists
Of
Our
Kind

Loudly
Insist
Kristin
Embrace

Her wonderful face

oh my GOD

Ambient Waves

Ambient Waves

Ambient waves sound soothes me

Drifting on a glassy sea

Aware of my weight (obviously)

Pressing on my bed feet feel like lead

One hour from dead

Ambient waves distract from facts

I need embracing again

I left the party feeling odd

Usual stories fail to entice

Assuming anxiety I stepped outside

A genuine urge to flee

Whoosh rises up in me

Winter rain fell drenching me in sound

Ambient waves of falling rain

I was unaware of my humanity there

More animal than man

Last instinct to interact with any soul

My beloved appeared

She took her time my animal mouth muttered

Rain fell masking craven tears

Ambient waves of anxious fears

I want to embrace and run

At the same time

Too much wine and pity mingled

In my veins

Ambient waves of red in an oaken vat

Rippled rouge grape transforms

I too had ripened but my wine was corked

The skin not detached a botched operation

I want to embrace someone

Ambient waves of love to halt an anxious flood

Stirring of depressed neurons merge mindfully

Barred rescued and referred

Free as a bird now

Ambient waves of love

Chris Papps June 24 / 2021

Infatuation

See the man who attaches

his sad cape makes a poor super hero

the villain

is his own blindness

see the man who gets infatuated

with feminine energy

lamenting his own emptiness

in the alchemy of despair

see the infatuations

the collections of choice

little trinkets to prove that he was alive

in this space and time

divided twice born soul

infatuated teases the gaze from that malaise

of self pity and victimhood as mantras

of manhood

of the code of never opening

the portal

infatuated with infatuations

they touch the splinter of light

embedded too deep within

spinning in flirtations that are not real

let the veil slip

let the curtain reveal

the actor although nervous delivers a fine speech

infatuations diminish both star and sky

love the light within

begin

cp2021

What have we lost

And we shall know the singer

and we shall know the song

in that moment we will belong

in a space internalised

we dare to see outside ourselves

to feel just feel waves on bare skin

we are bare skin animals

wrapped in cloth

what have we gained

what have we lost?

CP2021

Nights Velvet Cape

Nights dark velvet cape star encrusted cloud draped

owl and mouse behind your house,

there are noises in the garden

if you wake on midnight’s stroke

hear the creak of bough teased by nights breath,

cats on the prowl nights symphony plays

to the crickets chorus.

chris papps 2021

Poem for a friend in summer

Cool breeze after sweltering night

clear water

to ease aching limbs

fresh washed hair spread over a pillow

tender embrace

smiles freely given fall fertile here

where friends and lovers toil

emotions and the tide flow and ebb

with the gibbous moon,

Sunset at the beach

your favourite place where gulls

wheel and mew

waves roar mingles with the sea airs

siren call,

A light on the horizon

fisherman toils at his nets

amazed at a dolphin swimming nearby

a small child cries

her Father consoles the tired girl

as sunsets vivid reds streak her hair

as your lover takes your hand.

CP1994

Streams

Sleep

clear your mind in crystalline streams

bathe in cold currents

insistent muses call

pure as snow melted water flows

purposefully carving valleys

carving granites might in time

Think

that stream was conceived

elements mated peerless in form

and ethereal beauty to flood

barren gorges

I rest my feet in cool water

in a split second of history

Rise

from silence

shafts of sunlight peep through grey sky

contemplate why

streams draw us with their melody

the source lies in ourselves

born of and in water

CP1980

Kettleman City 1990

Under this aged dusty pine

defiantly alone

behind a boarded up shop

vacant lots

sweltering hot mid summer

we stopped,

this solitary shade unwelcoming

our car engine hot

ticking its protests

halted and leaden we sat as well

in this vision of empty hell

this soul less chasm

lost hope like a bird on the wires

just sitting watching

waiting to expire ,

We formed a parched prayer

Lord send down rain

send down water

send down life to stir again

send down rain

the endless blue sky seemed

disinclined to acquiesce this

presumptuous entrety

soon we too blew awayt

to the sanctuary of tall mountains

the meadows of Merced.

CP 1997