Author: Don Iannone, D.Div., Ph.D.

Biography Writer, photographer, poet, and teacher. Holds doctorates in Divinity and Metaphysical Philosophy. Author of 20 books, including seven poetry books, nine photography, and four nonfiction books. Contact Information Contact Don Iannone by email: diannone@gmail.com

Tulsa

Tulsa, a place Mom and Dad lived for a short time
Where Mom died, now twenty-two years ago
Where Oral Roberts preached
And broadcasted his ministry to millions
Including Grandma Secrist
Who faithfully watched his sermons during the 1950s and 1960s
On her old black and white Philco TV
That flickered hope into her life on Moore’s Run—
That sad and forgotten Eastern Ohio holler
Where Mom was born, and
A long way from Tulsa where she died

Tulsa, a place I’ve visited many times
Since Mom’s passing and Dad’s moving
To help the Cherokee Indians
With various plans and studies
Tulsa, a place I left this morning
Troubled about my Dad
Who lay dying in a bed in Tupelo—
Where he has lived out his last sixteen years

All this flashes into my mind
As I sit in seat 16F
Of a Continental flight from Tulsa to Houston
On my way back to Cleveland—
The place I call my home

From my plane window
I watch the sunrise spread across the eastern sky
Searching for answers
To life’s biggest questions—
Those questions each of us faces
In our own way and time

There is no question Dad will die in Tupelo
As Mom died in Tulsa
No real need for an answer to that question
There is no question—
That someday I will die
And so will you
Yet, all this seems so hard to accept
As I look down on Tulsa wondering why

How We Get There

I think back
Remembering
The life I left behind
The life forever hanging
On the wings of time

The very same wings and life
Carrying me moment to moment
Breath to breath
To new parts of myself
Parts yet unborn

You ask if I’ve changed
Since shedding my last skin
My eyes blink
A new world appears
No need to answer your question

I stare ahead
Where they keep the future
I only see what my eyes allow me
I am wedded to my feet
With one in front of the other, the future appears

Forest Sunlight

There is sunlight in the forest today
Sifting through the trees
Like a luminescent waterfall
Crushing all darkness below

There is sunlight in the forest today
Where fawn-spotted mushrooms grow
Where lurks the red-tailed hawk
Whose back shimmers in the sun’s white rays

There is sunlight in the forest today
Guiding home all those lost
Illuminating the trail by the little stream
We hear only when it rains

There is sunlight in the forest today
It falls on my uplifted face
Bearing my soul
To the heavens above

Stormy Weather

Inside all of us, storms aplenty
Some predictable, others sudden, without warning
Thunder, lightning, heavy rain—
We survive, all parts of life
Hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones, tsunamis—
Always deeper, more devastating
Often more than we can withstand

Watch we must, our inner radar screen
Observing for changes, signs of what’s to come
Never perfect information though
Each moment abides in its own flow
Carrying us to its eye
Where there is peace
But no seeing beyond

Storms come and go
Like the wind—
Sweeping us into surrender
Into places where we must change
To transcend ourselves and survive
To find safe harbor
That place beyond all stormy weather

Stroke

Imagine not knowing
Where you are
Who you are
How you’ll ever get back
To your place of knowing

Imagine the torment
Raw unformed fear
Galloping throughout your being
As your mind races
Leaving you nowhere

Imagine the hell
Of being forever lost
Not just a bad dream
Or even a terrifying nightmare
But an endless state of not knowing

Imagine one day
You are perfectly normal
Everything seems right
Then without warning
The world you knew and loved is gone

All the theories, concepts, diagnoses
Explaining why your brain misfires
Why your consciousness is lost
They don’t matter
You can’t find your way back

Youth’s Butterfly

Our youth
Like some ineffable butterfly
Flits about in our memories, dreams, reflections
At times, as real as any dream can be
Always, midstream between the familiar and unknown

The older faces about us tell stories
Going past the point butterflies can go
Places no words can reach
Spaces outside the universe we’ve grown to love
Placeless realities no eyes can ever see

Somehow, we start over again before we end
Revisiting, remembering our beginnings
Hoping our memories help us hold on
Somehow anchor us in the shifting sand
Trickling through life’s hourglass

We seem to sense the futility
Of holding onto what only visits
Like the sun in summer
Like the butterfly in the garden
That disappears as quickly as it arrived

Tribute to Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones

(Click on picture to enlarge for reading)

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (Cleveland, Ohio) died suddenly yesterday [8/20/08] of a brain hemorrhage. She will be greatly missed by many. She served 10 years in Congress and was an outstanding public servant. She was only 58 years old.

Sweet Amelia

I thought of Amelia, just this morning
Not long after the sun rose
Setting my heart on fire
I should have felt guilty
Just a tinge of remorse
None came, and so
My memories grew deeper

Plain as day, I saw Amelia
Her beauty lapped at my eyes
Her sweet scent, crushing me
Leaving nothing inside me to hold back
I knew then, as I did upon our first embrace
There’s no forgetting what’s eternal
What’s forever etched in your soul

No flower blooms forever
Yet she flowers deep inside me
But even in her receding waves, there is grace
Even when the sun disappears, leaving her naked
There is no forgetting
God’s own daughter
Only can I think of her—sun-sweet Amelia

Note: A tribute to Amelia Island just north of Jacksonville, Florida

Looking Back in Time

Eighteen in ’69
Just a young man. deliriously free
Eager as a spinnaker sail
On a wild racing sailboat
Cutting through time
So many years after
Still chasing the translucent wind

Eighteen, a ghost in Tucson
Land of sunlight, magical sunsets
Each moment, virgin
As the first time
An ancient lost star reappears
Driving Speedway, Abbey Road blarin’
Strange visions, smokin’ Panama Red

Creamsicle-orange sunset, Gates Pass
Beyond where last songs linger
Ladies of the Canyon
Nights of White Satin
Something in the way she moves
Purple Haze, guitars on fire
Lit mescaline dreams, May wind-swept clouds

Saguaro cactus arms out-stretched
Holding on to what’s left
What began, never ended
Now fifty-seven, moon-struck memories
Wispy clouds, awaiting sunset
Red-green tie-dyed tee shirts
Just one wish…do it all over again

Something but Nothing

Each of us, a part of that larger something
That speeding beam of light
Streaking through the universe
That churning river, no beginning or end
That idea, completely incomplete
Seeking form, expression, repetition
Even before it is aware of itself

Each of us, a part of that other something
Something beyond us, you, me, anything
Always something other than what we think
Illusive as the beauty we sense
But cannot touch with our hand or words
Like chasing smoke from a distant fire
Or a butterfly through the heart’s garden

Each of us, something
But nothing by ourselves
Contingent, perhaps co-dependent
On each moment flowing through us
But even in the moment
No permanence, foundation, or reason
We just are

Hummingbird

I waited for you
You did not come
I watched for you
My eyes grew tired
I fell fast asleep

As I slept
There were dreams
Dancing through my head
Of you
Life and death

You were there
In all my dreams
The buzz of your wings constant
Your gleeful chirp between sips
Of life’s sweet nectar

I awakened from my dreams
There you were at my window
There you were in my heart
It’s all a miracle—
The dreams, life, hummingbirds

Another version here

Our Inner Life Condition

Inner life condition, more than anything
Gives rise to our joy and satisfaction
Little else really matters
Nothing else can save us from the demons
We’ve carried around since birth—
The demons we must lose before we die

What is in our hearts
What brings our minds peace
Speaks louder than any words
Saying more to others
About who we are
Whether we’re worth the time
To know as a friend

While many, perhaps most
Strive for happiness in the outer realm
Our souls can never abide there
We are but single heartbeats
Echoing across a vast canyon of moments
But we are those heartbeats
And that’s all that will ever matter

Dreams Come True

Do you remember when you were nine
And you dreamed, without sleeping
Of travel to far-off places
Being a major league baseball hero
Discovering long-lost worlds
Where extinct Indians lived
And being so rich
That nobody in your family ever had to work

You’ve done all of these things
But in ways you never imagined
And for reasons you never expected
You’ve traveled inward
Discovered your own long-lost world
Rediscovered friends you thought gone forever
You are the hero of your own life story
And you have a richness way beyond money

All your dreams have come true
Even the tiny ones
That open vast life doors
And most of the large ones
That you thought could only be dreams
So you sit, watching clouds drift
Across bright blue sky
Now you see it’s all just a dream

Watching the Friday Night Fights with Dad

Dad watched the fights every Friday night
I learned that to be close to Dad
You watched the fights with him
We never talked directly to each other
Only through the televised action
On our old black and white Philco

Dad’s eyes never left the set
Occasionally he’d make fists
With his large calloused workingman’s hands
And throw a calculated punch here and there
I did the same
My smaller writer’s hands mimicking his jabs

Boxing seemed brutal
Downright Neanderthal
But somehow you knew–
Fighting was a real part of life
Completely inescapable
And any life situation could be the ring

As a seven-year old
I had no idea
That life was an endless boxing match
Not limited to Friday nights
Usually not a spectator sports
And most often, you had to be your own referee

The Miracle of Life

life–it seems to happen
while we’re waiting for a train
walking the dog
drinking a glass of wine
thinking about tomorrow’s meeting
saying our prayers at night
sitting half asleep on the sofa
planting flowers in the garden
saying goodbye to a friend
changing a dirty diaper
and even as we take our last breath
and give into a new life

yes, life is a miracle
but fully within our reach
even though only for a fleeting moment

In Their Prime

I walked along the river in Kent
Thinking, wondering
Why it happened here, of all places
Four Kent State students died here
Why not Columbia or Berkeley
Student demonstrations were more intense there
Why Kent State University, May 4, 1970

Then I realized–
It could happen anywhere
It’s not just about protesting a war
It’s about young people dying
In the prime of their lives
At the hands of others
Especially other young people

How’s your memory?
Jackson, Mississippi, May 14-15, 1970
Hot Springs, Arkansas, April 5, 1982
Iowa City, Iowa, November 1, 1991
West Lafayette, Indiana, October 16, 1996
Closer to home…Cleveland, Ohio, May 9, 2003
Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007
DeKalb, Illinois, February 14, 2008

Our Work Can’t Save Us

I think of work
That which pays us
Promises to sustain us
And yet, milks our life energy
Leaving us empty and dry

I think of careers
And how we entrust ourselves to them
To being something in particular
Somebody who matters
Because of the work we do

I’ve given up on work
As anything special
As anything that will save us
Or prevent the inevitable
Whose work it is to take us away

Look up close
Use a microscope if you must
To see what work is really about
For those you work for, and for yourself
When I look I see little that really matters

It’s a disease
Incurable for most
This thing we call work
It saps away the real us
Leaving us empty and forever wanting

I think of work
How I’ve spent my life
There’s no stopping the sadness
That descends and lingers
Until it takes us, and we can then rest

What we do in life should really matter
It should be about more than money
Or healthcare benefits when we’re old
These things aren’t enough
They can’t save us, or prevent the inevitable

I think of work, and wonder why
There isn’t something deeper in my life
That helps me see
Work only leads to more work
And never the freedom we all seek

When Hope Returns

Sorrow, the name you wear
When darkness falls
Covering your sunshine
Holding your happiness at bay

Loneliness, the face you share
When parts of you disappear
Like some lost ghost
Filling your soul with emptiness

Despair, last words you speak
When all else fails
Leaving you close to the edge
That narrow path your life walks

Then, for no reason
Except nothing else is left
Hope reappears
Taking away all that cries inside you

Rejoice in the Clouds and Rain

On those mornings
When the heart weighs heavy on the soul
Remember to rejoice
Give thanks for the clouds bringing the rain
That revives and nourishes the new and unexpected
Growing inside us

On those mornings
When tears fall like the rain
Allow them to wash away the past
Bringing us back to the present
Where life can be lived, and
The heart swims deeply in the soul’s still waters

Sunday Morning Metaphysical Journey

Think back, as far as possible
Remember your first breath, if you can
Then go beyond
To when the future
First passed through you
And left you as a trace in time

Return to the place
Where past, present and future are one
To where when began in your life
And you made your first distinctions
Between this and that
You and everything else

Go beyond all recordings, all traces of time
To the first moment
When illusion took hold in your life
It is there, and only there
You will find peace
And there, you can be without any remembering

Leadership

Better leadership they say
Is what we need
To become greater
Not just here, but everywhere
And for everything

What is leadership
Is it the noun leadership
Meaning better people to lead
Or is it the verb leadership
Meaning what actions leaders take

There’s no doubt we need
Both kinds of leadership
But for me
The starting point is self-leadership
Doing a better job leading ourselves

Our Sunrises and Sunsets

Every sunrise and sunset
Changes us, restores us
GIves us a hug
When we most need it

Every sunrise and sunset
Touches our deepest being
No promises
Just quiet sweeps of color we become

Everyday
A sunrise and sunset
Yet, no guarantees
Making it all even more important

No use clinging
Holding onto what we borrow
Then must give back
Like the sky each sunrise and sunset

All our sunrises and sunsets
Fleeting reminders
Live a colorful life
Bask each moment in life’s dreamy colors

Seek the Invisible Depths

“We are warmed by fire, not by the smoke of the fire. We are carried over the sea by a ship, not by the wake of a ship. So too, what we are is to be sought in the invisible depths of our own being, not in our outward reflection in our own acts. We must find our real selves not in the froth stirred up by the impact of our being upon the beings around us, but in our own soul which is the principle of all our acts.”

~Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk, 1915-1968

Everyday Miracles

Miracles happen everyday
Extraordinary things–
Like the orange butterfly
That sat on the budding flower
In the front garden till I smiled

For this graceful creature
There’s no pondering the universe’s beginning or end
Only joyful being
Not unlike our own shot at bliss
Without expectation
Intensive anticipation or undue acceptance

Miracles indeed abound
Each day, in every way
Things we easily know
Things we frequently overlook
Like the gentle orange butterfly
Sitting on the pink budding flower
Just beyond…
That point of no return in our imagination

See the picture here.

When I Think of the Sun

I think of the sun
Not just any
But the kind waking me
As a young boy
Rising with it
Only venturing to sleep
Long past its setting

I think of the sun
Something magical
Very much inside me
Doing nothing for Marietta sweet corn
Or the ham-like beef stake tomatoes
Sold along two-lane Route 7
Just north of New Matamoras

I think of sun, golden yellow
Kingly in posture
Rising and falling on que
Like some Viennese opera singer
Whose voice rings out
Only to crash suddenly
Leaving us waiting for more

When I think of sun
I remember best the sun
That slipped through the trees
Along the edges of Cloverfield
Where as a boy I dreamed the only dreams
Coming completely true in my life

Ponderings

It’s not clear
What separates us
From nature, each other
Even certain parts of ourself
We never knew existed
Until we fall flat on our face
Flatter than the horizon
On a hot July afternoon

Then we know
We are not who we think we are
And the world doesn’t exist
To serve, or even enable us
In some arcane remote way
Like how truth follows a butterfly
Or how there is no saving a balloon
From the end of a pin

Funny how such entitled thoughts
Like those featuring us
At the very center of the universe
Pop up and dominate us
Like our third grade teachers
Who taught us fresh air
Helps us avoid cold germs
Yet I wonder, even with all this
Can we ever avoid death?

Upon Seeing the Face of Just One Vietnamese Girl

Those faces…they linger
Like ghosts in some long lost place
That only God knows
That only I wish
I could forget

They flash back
Like sun on silver
Like lost pennies found
Washed up on some beach
After finding their bottom
Only to return to where they started

Where with bent backs
They culled and hoed their rice
Working as though tomorrow
Wouldn’t come unless they gave
All they had and more
Yes more, even their lives

And in one lonely girl’s blank face
I saw all that 38 years could never forget
In her eyes there reflected
So many young men
Lost, hoping to find a moment’s peace
That would take it all back
All 18 months they barely lived
Till the day they die

See this: click on this link

Blinded by the Noonday Sun

So hard
the afternoon sun beat down
Forsaking all shadows
Blinding us to see
only what is illuminated
What is known
And missing what it hides

So hard I try at times
to see life as it is
All the things I deny
Life’s impermanence, unpredictability
imperfection, only partial accessibility
Even in the best of light
Granted by the penetrating noonday sun

Some say try harder
to see more, to see better
Use the light to focus your mind
Perhaps we should not try so hard
Instead open ourselves, like a blossoming flower
And stop worrying about light, what we see
Then light’s meaning changes and so do we

Memories of a Dear Uncle

Stoney
The name of a man
I never knew growing up
But Uncle Hank talked about nonstop
Like some freight train
Coming and going
Without scheduled stops, and
Most importantly, without even a destination

I was curious–about Stoney, my Uncle Hank
And of course what came before all curiosity
Something deeper
Taking us to the ocean’s bottom
Something today that still keeps me up
Well past midnight
Well past all memories

I think of the Antler’s
So many years later
A bar, a place where working men hung out
And dreamed about something larger
Than the lives they lived
The woman they married
The children they fathered
Brought into the world
Like cold rain on some nondescript Sunday night
After seeing their mother
In that hideous, souring smell nursing home
That even death avoided
Till the very last moment

Stoney doesn’t matter
Not now
He’s long gone
He was just a reason
For my uncle to dream
Past the reality he lived
My uncle, childless
Wished for his own
But none came
A man who dropped dimes, and sometimes quarters
Into our sweaty palms
As we stood on the porch
And waved goodbye
Before he walked slowly up the street–
The same street we played on
The same street my uncle died on
And the same street I left
Moving on beyond the dimes and quarters
To some place else
Some place now
Where time grows short
Walking much faster than my long gone uncle
Who now plays with Stoney
In the side yard of grandma’s house
A place I desperately try to remember

When the Owl Calls Your Name

The owl was calling last night
Somebody’s name echoed through the dark still forest
I listened for awhile to hear him again
But only silence rang through my ears

When the owl called
My heart shrank with fear
Praying it was not my name
But another’s that he called

Most don’t hear the owl’s call
Until it is their time
Until it is their name
Echoing through the tall dark trees

Those who believe
Say that the owl doesn’t know
Whose name he calls
Only he who bears the name knows

There is no mistaking
When your name is called
We always hear it
Then, it is our time to go

Contemplating Life One Sunny Sunday Morning In June

Inasmuch as we’re in so far
There are…
No beginnings
No endings
No going anywhere, except
Beyond time, which
Lasts only a moment
Just as long as a breath–
Yet so powerful, ever gentle
Just as long as a heartbeat–
Surging through me, the universe
And beyond
Yes, always beyond
Why?
Because it must
Because it exists without reason
Just like you
Just like me

Choose Happiness

Clouds imagined, clouds so real
Often exactly how we feel
We look about, then it rains
Find the strength, break the chains

Some days are dead before they start
No horse in front to pull our cart
Fret we do about what’s hard
Touchy, sensitive, always on guard

We have a choice, no matter what
No need to stew till we’re hot
This is Friday, not just any day
Give it a chance, that’s what I say