Songs for Our Mother

Bird Sings

Frog Sings

Beach Walks

Butterfly Flutters By

Even Moss Sings

Night Song

Cloud Song

Rain Dance

River Ditty

Waiting for Now

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This not a poem.

It is the track list for

my new CD,
Songs for Our Mother.

This album explores the common textures between nature and the spontaneous music of indigenous instruments. Featuring eleven spontaneous compositions for Native American flute and kalimba enhanced with Theremini and computer generated soundscapes, these tracks utilize an interesting blend of what on first glance may appear as incongruous elements to create an amazing interweaving of lush sonic layers in celebration of the connection between Mother Earth and human artifice.   Please enjoy a full listen for free and let me know what you think. If you would like to add this music to your own collection, you may buy the digital release for $15 or join my subscription community (for $15/ year) to receive unlimited  access to over 70 tracks of my psychoactive music. 

Hide & Seek

It took over a month for Isatella & the Master of the Silver Catfish to emerge from their boreal surroundings so I am calling this one "Hide & Seek." Perhaps my most whimsical watercolor yet...

universal

seed lit grass

nod in

eager waves

 

bend in

wind

now and again

 

same breath

pulses through

each of us

 

no matter

how old

or alone

The Third Full Moon in a Season of Four

The gathering storm eats
this true blue moon,
a dry wafer, soft hazy red
against the tin horizon.

It slips like a shining quarter
into a jukebox of cloud,
lingers gleaming in the dark coin slot
while the sad song plays.

We walk on bundled and
stiff like scarecrows into
the blustery November dusk.
We came to watch the full moon rise,

but what seems more pertinent now
is how this diaphanous disk
of sanguine floats pale
and quiet as milkweed seed

on the edge of the wind
and then is gone. There is
something rare yet relevant
in the way it disappears top first

into ambiguous lips of gray,
like the way you pull me
into your love from whatever
sorry spin my mind puts me in.

We tread our rambling path
calling owl and raven,
dizzy from the hordes
of squawking geese

hurtling above our heads.
The leaves crisp from their fall
crackle under our feet.
We have become deeply familiar

with how the rippled lake
smooths itself into evening,
how the shadowed land stretches and
yawns as the sleep of winter nears.

We wonder if the glowing gold eyes
of coyote will follow us into the dark.
There is something amazing,
something intimate and perhaps enduring

in how our footprints freeze in mud.
We have been this way a hundred times
through blistering summer heat and sudden
spring rains. Nothing ever remains,

yet this sunken moment
of our meandering, frosted in
the last blood of sunset,
glimmers as night closes in.

The Kill, an experimental poetry video, by M. D. Friedman

Here's my new video poem.  Please let me know what you think.
A full screen preview is availble at www.mdfriedman.com.

autumn blue

staring up into


porcelain sky glazed deep blue


fickle fall breaks through


 

Taste of Green

The water knows


as do the bluebells,


laden with bee and seed.






The wind knows


and is trying


to tell me.






The murmuring falls


whisper more wisdom


than my mind can hold.






I embrace the ache


of volcanic spires


reaching for blue.

Like this shifting patch of speckled sun


I take my stand in, the bright


spiral of my hunger falls into itself.

I inhale the crystal

air that churns

through light

splintered pine

overwhelmed by the always

splendid taste of green.

Hooked

It is not because no one is home


that this thunder leaves me uneasy.


Rain chants its mantra of falling


no matter what comes to mind.


The rain dashes by like a cat, and the thunder


growls like a dog pulling on its chain.


Water moves, always wearing down,


dissolving anything in its way.


Me, I stay put. I could be a tree


how casually I wait for the light to come.


The thunder stutters now as if to say,


"Enough already." A muffled squall


rages inside me. It rains here all the time.


The wind pushes the tears back into my eyes.


I open and close the dark window, open and close


the window because I need to breathe.


I groan in a dialect of thunder no one understands.


Like a drunk stumbling home, I bellow and bawl


until there is nothing to say, until I black out.


I am as hooked and mangled as Hemingway's marlin.


This is what it is like to be old, to have nothing left to climb.


At the top of the tower, the ever turning light


makes a shadow out of anything in its way. Up or down


no longer matters. Once the water, heavy from its journey,


comes to rest, it returns to the purity of the sky.


This is the teaching of the rain, the meaning of our breath,


take in deeply what you may, but remember always to let go.

Breathe Deeply by M. D. Friedman CR 2010

Please see www.mdfriedman.com for more of M. D. Friedman's art.

 

anniversary haiku

we dive together


like bees into wild roses


hearts surging nectar

made of sky

This poem needs to be viewed as a pdf.  Please click here.

The above is a "2D" (or 2 directional poem). It was composed to be read both vertically (down each column) and horizontally (across each row). It is difficult to get a full appreciation for the work by looking at it on a page. Please click to listen to the audio version.