Reaching

I reach for you, tantalizing against the summer moon,

You sit there, warm against my embrace, feeling the pull of the ecstatic draw,

The pure and servile notions of a lover’s desire.

I reach for you, desperately seeking the feel,

The sensation of a touch, moment.

A moment.

When I find you I am full, the singular fullness of a lover,

The singular fullness of a need, fulfilled.

I feel you moving beneath my skin.

I reach for you, knowing as you draw to me,

Knowing as you need me back,

Your skin is against me, filling my soul….

I reach for you….

Stones, Common in Kind

I sat and tried to fathom you,

I sat and spoke my mind.

I spoke of petty things to you,

I spoke of things unkind.

You talked of conversations

Of the words of days gone by.

I told some secrets of my own,

I spoke of passing by.

Hours passed and there we were,

Spinning the words of soul.

Spinning and telling things inferred,

Things, some new, some old.

We walked down roads long left untrod,

Places we had been.

Lived memories we thought were gone,

Lost and found again.

I found a tinge of pain I keep buried deep inside,

Followed feelings home again

Remembered friends of mine.

I spoke of the regrets I had,

You spoke of those you bear.

I asked just how we all could tell

Just where to go from here.

I do not think we ever found

The answers that we need.

Perhaps these conversations are simply manna

On which the soul does feed.

The sands flew through the hourglass,

The failing light long gone.

The time was forced to end,

With words still left undone.

Fleeting taillights shining

 as you drove away.

Bittersweet,  but glad you had been

part of this long day.

And as I slowly sauntered back

to a cold and lonely place.

I wondered if you looked back now

And you too felt the same

I sat and tried to fathom you,

You sat and spoke your mind.

It seems the stones that make us two

Are stones common in kind.

The Mysterious Serendipity of an Evening

Looking up I saw you.  Your face looking down, slightest parted lips.

I remember the smile when you saw me look up.

The soft, delicate feel of your breasts as you hugged me, surprised as I was.

A tiny bit of me drowned in the warmth of you, the scent of you, the desire of you…even then.

I watched you talking, there in the midst of the bustling nothing.

I watched the movement of your lips, the twinkle in your eye. 

I saw you glance to the table,

When you thought you may have said a bit too much.

With each minute I saw you more.  When we were propositioned to join,

They saw me seeing you, they retreated.

Others spoke to me of seeing us there but being unwilling to break the spell,

Though they knew not why or what sort it was.

We sat at the table in the corner later, I brought you a drink.

We ate, we spoke, the images of it flow through me.

And when you showed me “Angry Birds”, I leaned in and took in the closeness,

As I had not indulged before.

In truth, had my inhibitions and fears been less, I would have wrapped my arms around you,

Given in to my desire to feel the beating of your heart against my own. 

I did not though.

Contented with being close enough that the heat of your body reflected on my own,

I pretended to care about the game on your phone, only to be next to you a little more.

I could not speak to you of my thoughts, my feelings. 

I invited you to come and sit a while.

And, when you said yes, and though I knew it was childish and silly,

I struggled to contain my arousal at the thought of spending the evening next to you, whatever the guise.

I watched with careful abandon as your headlights followed me.

I could not bear to lose you, though I hardly knew the way…

Arriving there, I found pleasure in entering the fine hall

With you walking beside me, walking with me.

Long hours we sat, exchanging things,

Embracing things, desiring things.

You fidgeted and tugged at your hem.

I regularly withdrew behind my hands,

Both concerned we would expose too much, too far, too long.

It was a joy to walk beside you as you left me. 

That moment, that stroll, knowing it would be the last for long days.

I felt the softness of you as you leaned into me

And I knew the night was done.

Missing You

And what is this darkness?

What is thy claim?

Where is the hold you ought to have?

Nay, thy claim, the notion that you are pain,

That you are hideous and awful,

These boasts are but folly.

You are comfort.

Into darkness one might slip,

Never seeing, void of feeling,

Never aware, never seething,

Just drifting to places from which one cannot see

Darkness what a comfort you could be. 

What a balm.

But no. 

There is no comfort. 

No blessed pitch’ed black.

Only the gleam of light that cannot be reached.

Only the fingertips stretching out, shaking with rage and need and angst,

Only the voiceless cry of desire, of willing wings to sprout and to fly to the light of her!

Only the shaking of the foundations of the mind as the whirling imagination tells tales that cannot be, that will not be, that rip the soul.

Oh! For the blessed womb of night!

Oh for the encapsulation of senseless void.

Darkness. Ha!

Darkness is respite from this untouchable light…

Odin to Fjorgyn

I cannot separate the deepest thoughts I have of you

From the lonely crags and steeples I am walking through.

In numbing flashes of your eyes, it reaches far beyond the new

And finds a place, it rests where I cannot get to.

With gentle smile you lift me far above the dismal clouds of grey

And when you close your eyes it also ends my day.

And when I see that faint inflection longing for some heady change

It eats upon me and it wears my heart away.

Would that I could only lift my arms and turn the weary world away from you.

Then reach them slowly, gently, softly to embrace, encapsulate and cover you.

I would build a hedge around you raise a palace made of sky and water blue.

I would compel the world to bow and lay its treasures down right there in front of you.

I am low, am mortal man and in my hands the earth is cold

I will not offer things; I will not be so bold.

I will cast my lidded glance across the barren wasteland old

Find the place where love and hate are bought and sold.

If I happen to; strange, stumble upon something oh so dear

If fate allows me, if I overcome my fear.

If memory of Angel’s eyes sustains me well away from here

And if a man can find sustenance in a tear…

I will lift my arms and with a glance of love and malice turn their eyes from you.

Praying fear and recognition will not make you fly when I’m revealed to you.

And if the demons that now pace your steps approach, they’ll be unable to come through.

And all the earth will know that all I ever wanted was to lie down next to you.

Beech and Oak

So spoke the big Red Oak unto the lovely young Beech tree,

You’re full of trepidation dear, or so it seems to me.

Afraid the mighty wind might make you suddenly fall down,

And you will find yourself a’ lying broken on the ground.

Bear yourself up proudly now, you’ve quite forgot about,

The roots that dig in deeply, they really are quite stout.

The wind may blow against you, may bend you to and fro,

You’ll find your branches tangling up quite well with these, my own!

But take good heart and listen, you are grounded in the soil,

And built the roots that keep you there through many years of toil.

The time may come when we are blown and carried on away,

But rest assured,

For Beech and Oak,

That day is not today.

non reconcilie

Oh those eyes are haunting me.
Sinking deep into the lonely, secret places in my soul.
Where I’m afraid to go.

The gentle curvature around the
Softened silhouette of things that I can never know,
Dark dreams around you flow.

Another life I live and take
You by the hand and melting inward I am lost in you,
I’ve no will to choose.

Trapped in the catastrophic entropy of things and thoughts
That want to live but never do.
A ghost that’s slipping through.

Unchecked but yet restrained so close that breath is felt,
Warm whispers of what may well be.
Never dare to see.

Tantalizing moment, glancing touch, the warmth
That subtle hint of ecstasy.
An inadvertent tease.

Though I build the walls around me,
Insulate myself from heat that radiates from you.
I sequester all my thoughts, barricading
In my heart you permeate, you fuse.
And your eyes become a permanently glowing fixture
Etched upon my waking mind.
In this deeply hidden corridor I sit
And all my thoughts are bent on you tonight.

Buan

Sitting here and contemplating with an apathetic mind

Reveling in sweet reflection of another place and time

There is little light to see by and the corridor is dark

And the drops of recollection leave a tantalizing mark

Buried as it is inside me, in a box lined with allure

Ask me now to find it and I cannot be too sure

If the contents that I placed will be the one that I there find

But that’s ok the things within the box are yours and yet all mine

Speaking of them as I do I feel them drawing closer now

The images, the moments, close my eyes into this cloud

And I can see dim light reflecting from the moisture on your lips

Etched into my mind the patterns you made with your fingertips.

And though you thought I was not looking, I watched as you walked away

And though you thought I did not listen, I know every word you say

And though you thought I would go missing I am here at end of day

And I’ll be waiting here to warm the lover’s bed in which we lay.

forbidden attraction

Still, even now, I can taste the sweet addiction of your words,

Simple, conversational words destined to become engraved,

Deep in ambiguity upon my soul, I can’t remember each but each has taken hold.

I’ve but to close my eyes and there you are,

The easy conversation and proximity.  Deeply moving me.

Though I dare not say a word for fear of all the places my heart may run headlong to.

Though I walked away so gingerly I sensed, I knew each step, each footfall , every single breath from you.

Tearing at the fiber of the towers, battlements that cannot run from you.

At times I curse the notions that take hold for they are far from where they ought to be.

Though the bitter taste of fighting against torrents of a thing I cannot here set free.

verse to a distant love

Strange the days that pass like rain that flow through time so swift.

The moments seem to reach for days but weeks I give like gifts.

At times I find a panic stricken silence fill my mind,

As images of faces far away I reach to find.

Then in a sweet relief to my own soul, they reappear,

And small and simple comfort found, though you are still not here.

The myriad of ends this book could read I push away.

It serves no end to ponder things my feeble hands can’t change.

Forced I am to pray and leave to fickle fate’s cruel hands,

My life’s own book I offer, long to bend the bitter ends.

And if the love I feel may strength to fly ‘ore earth possess.

It will bring you safe to me to know my love’s sweetest caress.

the bear

Nestled in, safe and warm against the chill air

And sitting as one is wont to sit, in a deep and friendly chair

Sat the bear, thinking, but not deep in it.

Belly filled to that pleasant place where things do not feel out of sorts.

He is not pondering a meal, just reveling in the aftertaste, savory, wanting no more.

And the Bear thinks.  Thinks of his day, of his time,

Thinks of what tomorrow may pile upon his mind,

Thinks of the tedious chore of making up the rhymes

That all flow down together and paint the canvas, life.

 And the bear thinks of her and his contented smile widens perceptively,

He leans back and lets his breath pass his teeth expectantly,

Picturing times and moments, some past, some he hopes to be,

And chuckles and speaks aloud, though no one is listening.

Nestled in, safe and warm against the chill air

And sitting as one is wont to sit, in a deep and friendly chair

Sat the bear, thinking. … but not deep in it.

The Wind

And the wind, buffeting wind,

The wind that tears and grinds upon the wild places

The wind that smirks at the oak and the beech and the hickory

The wind that laughs in its freedom and strength and they feel

As it pulls at their roots and their branches and their green leaves.

Crashing around the victims are heard.  Dark and storm conceal them but

The violence of their destruction rings out,

Blocking off the mind, filling the vision,

Making the crashing and the destruction seem the only view left.

...but though there is some crashing, though it feels forlorn and dark and horrid,

The Elm and the Sweet Gum and the Oak take feeble heart

They hold their breath against the smirking wind and they know that

Though it tears and rends and holds its sway,

Though it pulls and its torrents shake them, buffet them…

They need but bend and hold their roots to the deep soil

The morning will come and the wind, with naught to hold it here, will blow away

And the Oak and the Beech and the Elm will sigh and it will be

A memory in the sunshine and dewy morning

The Pallbearer's Lament

I will carry you
As you can no longer do.
Though we did not walk this road together much,
I will bear you now.  To the steep precipice of the unknown
Where we gaze into the distance, We call out to the void but never,
Not once do we hear a response.
But I will carry you.
I will bear more than just you.
I will bear the knowledge that I could not carry you before.
The memories that calculate tactics for things we cannot touch,
Sitting as they are
 Behind the impenetrable wall of yesterday.
I will bear the hopes, the possibilities, the tears, the anguish.
I will bear the unspoken words, the un-phoned calls, the missed chances
To intervene.  I will bear the guilty tears of those who saw and did not act,
The indifference of those who acted and did not see… or care.
I will bear the memories you could not forget.
The desires you could not satisfy.
I will bear the you that sat within the walls of your mind and cried out, but could not give it voice.
I will carry the grim wrath of providence.
I will carry the indifference of the grave.
I will carry the spark that will try, feebly as it might, to make this burden not in vain.
Perhaps on some distant day we will see it,
Some purpose.
Some reason for the pain, the regret.
But for today, it is only pain. 
But I will carry you.
I will carry you
As you can no longer do.
Though we did not walk this road together much,
I will bear you now.  To the steep precipice of the unknown
Where we gaze into the distance, We call out to the void but never,
Not once do we hear a response.
I will carry you.

Moonlight on Pavement

Light against the blue the orb sat, oblivious to my steps.

Distant. Far from my feet it gazed, the counsel of time it kept.

I am not oblivious though; I am not alone.

With me stands the ages, the heavy things of molten stone.

In the distance expanse of time my essence was made.

In the core of violence and heat was born my clade.

This deep and soulful need, this ache

For things far beyond what gods have made,

For words only the heavens say

If in the vastness of deep and dark I find myself, I am content that it be my faith.

the flower

In the subtle undercurrents in the blood of my own soul

In the petty contradictions and the heat.

In the black morass of darkness, black as pitch and dark as coal,

Sits a tiny flower mellow, soft and sweet.

I do not admit its presence, speak to none of its allure

Do not advertise the bluest eyes that shine.

In the secret room left hidden, isolated and reserved

Emanates sensation of a different kind.

Gently stroking the perception of my feeble, mortal eyes,

Deeply pregnant with a passion out of reach.

Causing me to live a life fraught with the constant compromise,

You are right here yet I can’t pull you to me.

Content I must remain to have an angel floating somewhere

Just outside the grasp of these poor stain’ed hands,

From the shadow I will see you, burned upon my waking eyes and

Through the pain and anger I will understand.

The Grump

With temperance and lacking satisfaction the old laggard sat.

Eyes dully glowing, his countenance was an inversion

Removing light, undoing kind words, curmudgeonly and mean.

His stump was a podium to the world, preaching

Preaching, preaching his gospel of benign malcontent.

He was the mud in the clearest pool, the dark cloud chasing the silver linings

Intent on vanquishing them far away, his mood needing no company of their sort.

And when the pretty girls swished gaily by, he sneered at their rosy cheeks

And when the children frolicked at his feet

Playing with their paper boats in the puddles of the street

He shooed them away with a shout and a wave of his stick.

And when the old, mangy dog with no home lumbered by and growled,

He patted his head and said “Now here’s a chap.”

fool's gold

I looked at clouds and sandy ways where all around I heard,

The footfalls of ten thousand men, their little spoken words.

Hesitant I ventured in the place where they all said,

That dreams and all my fantasies would spring out from my head.

They showed me one bright bow of light where if I’d only climb,

The fruits of working over top would show before my eyes.

Join up now, they said to me, there in that mighty place,

And all the things you look upon will your own table grace.

They gave me strict instruction of just how and where to climb,

They told me to ignore my sense, it’ll all come out just fine.

So I forsook my twisted ways, my paths no feet had known,

And lit out across that light to find a pot that’s full of gold.

Now years and troubles weigh upon, as here I finally sit,

And in the brittle, failing light I’m unimpressed with it.

I have the gold, the journey’s done, I can’t go back again,

I cannot shake suspicion all this gold is made of tin.

longing to be the lover

As you see the cool reflection of my deep and hungry eyes

Upon the subtle, glinting sheen in this dark place.

Hidden deep within my being, deep beneath where my soul lies

If you look I will not speak of but a trace.

A fence of steel between us, holds my hands back from the urge

To reach and touch the curvature, the angel’s face.

I try my best to just suppress, to hold it somehow here at bay

But the thought of you still haunts all of my days.

wondering wanderings

Aimlessly wondering

Through the world I play living in

A stranger in my own skin

Unsure if I’m here or back again

Projecting some confidence

Holding a good defense

Afraid of the consequence

But plunging in none the less

And walking among the trees

The colors, the changing leaves

The people I seldom see

Whose eyes follow after me

The dust that now dulls my boots

The luster I had to lose

The path that I had to choose

The flotsam that’s hanging loose

So I sit here quietly

Silence so thick that I can’t see

Close my eyes to the evening breeze

And turn, try to find it, me

But I am off walking now

In places far from this town

Down highways and under clouds

Where something I seek is found

So here in the silence I

Will wait as the world goes by

I’ll take it, or maybe try

To lift, hold my head up high

And maintain a steady gaze

Through distance and deeper haze

To some far and distant place

Were the rest of me finds solace

And I know I’ll find it there

Or it will find its way here

And silence won’t be a thing to bear

But will be like sustenance, breathing air.

Ode to Johnny Walker

I seem to see past someone, in a darkened cabaret,
Misty smoke surrounds her, keeps getting in my way.
I slide to the bartender, say pour a glass for me,
I'm pretty sure I came with her, but she ain't come with me.

Her lips are slightly parted, eyes follow swaying hips,
I hold myself from exploration with eager fingertips.
My drink is on the table, My soul is on the line,
I damn well know she'll bring me low but, man, I'm doing fine.

Sweet burning fire upon my lips, it travels down so smooth.
I feel invigorated but I still do not feel you.
The softest evanescence as electrified you move
Until the beat invades my feet, a subtle little groove.

The silky frigid heat of where I want so bad to be.
The curses and distain for who I am that rise in me,
The telling revelation of the life that has no key,
But the bottle has no bottom, though I’m falling I’m not free.

Wilderness

Quietly exhaling underneath the din of noise

Conversations happening but never dent the surly poise

Locked outside the glass from all the other girls and boys

In a symphony of silence unconcerned with mirth or joy

Listening to voices hidden, speaking on but with no words

As the bells toll from some tower on some long ago lost church

As the cataclysmic entropy bleeds out upon the urge

Dousing out the glowing embers, push them down where they won’t hurt.

And the crowd around me ripples with a deep uneasy sway

And they can’t decide to come close or move very far away

And my eyes are glowing with something that I cannot explain

And the ambiance can seldom break a smile upon my face

And my lack of orthodoxy pulls some in and others scorn

I project the strength of oak but I feel broken down and worn

And with a million paths from here, in a million ways I’m torn

Trying to choose a single kernel from the swaying stalks of corn.

I can feel the secrets that the world is loathe to give

Know many paths I’ve walked are paths that I will walk again

Knowing I will have companions as I walk this wilderness

And hope that on my journey I somehow will learn to live.

cost

What was secretly reflecting

In this mad and lonely rage

In this desperate condition

In this spattered, ink stained page

What was lurking in the shadows

Of the delicate remorse

In the stingy retribution

Of the silent shutting doors.

I have heard its giggling madness

I have felt it, warm, demure

Drawing in and sweet caressing

Acting like it has no lure

Wet and sumptuous the taste of

What it lays upon my tongue

Like raging choirs of angels

Like a million songs it sung.

It has led me to your bedside

It has pulled me to your arms

It has made me scream in anger

It has made me lay down, tharn

It has pulled me to the lowest

It has flew me oh so high.

It is only what I’ve given

It is only what I’ve tried

It is deeper than the look

Given by children when they pray

It is wider than the battle

that cannot escape the fray

It is keener than an eagle

Honing in upon its prey

It is dark, obtuse and shallow

Hiding out from light of day

It will bring me to my knees and

It will make me leap so high

It will cause my feeble voice to

roar, cause evil things to rise

It will take away my air yet

Draw out my last lonely breath

To step in front of you and

Shake my fist at looming death

And it will bring to me emotion

I knew not that I possessed

Ignite a fire that all the world

Cannot yet suppress

I am standing in the ashes

Of a life I thought I lost

On my arm a vision standing

For whom I pay, yet count no cost.

Thoughts after lovemaking

And the deep, green sea takes us

Drifting as a bit of flotsam, unconcerned with direction

Unperturbed by obligation or the sickly white hand of the clouds

Breathing the salt spray, closing the eyes against the wind

Minute senses. Calloused by the raging waters of time

Waters that plunge here, there, in, then out.

Sensations that cannot be captured by the photo lens

Notions bound by fate but not constricted by it.

These ethereal beings, nebulous bodies that hang in the corners

Of the thoughts of man, these nameless, faceless, voiceless.

They defy the natural laws and yet do not question them

These, the deep.  These the unknown unknowns.

And so we embrace them, and so we immerse.

We pull silently through the gray-scale day and entertain

We list in the sea of providence and pretend the sails pull us so.

Drifters.  Quietly watching the sky.  The horizon

Nicodemus

They told me he’d not make it.

Everybody said it.  “He’s gone already” they’d say.

“He’s as good as gone and ain’t coming back”

And I told me that too. I said that too.

He wasn’t dead though, not really.

He was still kicking a little, still glinting out of that eye.

Still sparking just a fuzz.

I killed him.  Killed him dead.  Killed. Him.  Dead.

I stomped him out, squished him down and mashed his guts

Till they spread like butter on hot cornbread.

Dead.  I killed him.

“Better off dead”, or so the folks said.

“Better off moved on down the road”

“Matter of fact, he was askin’ for it”

I agreed.  I said that too, but he wasn’t.  He was tired.

He was broke down.  He wouldn’t have made much of anything.

No question about it, he wasn’t bound to set the world on fire,

He was going to lay there and crawl.  Crawl around and end up a scratch

Away from where he started, and that wasn’t no place.

Better off dead…I killed him.

And as I was swingin’ the axe and pullin’ the trigger and stabbin’ the sticker

He looked at me and just hoped, when I was done, he’d fly.

You

There you are, just walking by.

An imperceptible glint of eye,

A hint of mystery, convenient, sly.

I smell your scent and I close my eyes.

I hear things round the edge of your voice,

Things take my senses, plays and toys.

The silhouette of your lips, the skin

That traces your eyes, my eyes return again,

To where your fingertips rest upon your leg.

I catch myself from words I haven’t said.

The body there from which my soul is fed,

Seeking places that have not yet met.

Seeking light after the sun has set,

After the world outside the door is shed.

After I taste the heady drink instead,

Of my lover's lips upon a lover's bed.

The Silent Poet's Lament

I have not tested this, the resting pose, the deep sublime

A penny here a button or a shoe, a faded rhyme

A faulty name that speaks of shame that sits inside a dime

Or watches and a hanging door that cannot tell the time.

The floaty, flitty, flabbergasted fluid filling here

Or piles and piles of smells and petty pleasures shedding tears

Extemporaneously changing rage inside a mirror

And all the things that bang upon my door that I’m afeard

So sitting on a stump and rump and calluses and pricks

The delicatest , slenderest of fibrous wicking wicks

The feet of little words go flitting there among the sticks

Escaping to some other page of ice cream cones and licks.

The Little Death

Sit down and set your lust at ease and tip a glass as full as these

And spill it down your bonny sleeves and bring ‘em all down to their knees

And take ‘em on and take ‘em home and call ‘em on the telephone

And blow ‘em little kisses on their lips like tossing dogs a bone

They cannot see you smiling there, the pretty bow up in your hair

The voice so dashing, debonair. Calling, calling don’t know where

The people stand with little care and cast bad lots on but a dare

Throw money on the slowest mare while you sit pretty in your chair

The ferry runs on but a dime, man better run there’s little time

The boatman wears a waistcoat fine, they’re standing in the ticket line

And speak the work you got inside, the one you take your care to hide

The wave that marks the crashing tide and poisons you like cyanide

And find the things you’ve thrown away and find the price you have to pay

To spend a single, bitter day and speak the word you’d never say

Distinctions of your bitter clade, the psycho-logic cannonade

The thoughts that tend to connotate the cannibal on which you ate.

So get on up and take me there, you’ll do my dear, you’ll do I swear

You’ll sew up my soul’s little tear, I’ll see you standing everywhere.

I’ve got a burden that I bear but I think you can help, my dear

I may seem odd but don’t be scared I’ll use my kiss and wipe your tear

And when I’m done you will not cry no more you’ll spread your wings and fly

You’ll purse your lips and kiss the sky you’ll let go of your compromise

You’ll look well past the callous lie that said you can’t be satisfied

You’ll look into my blue-green eyes and then the little death you’ll die.

extemporanium

The flapping of little feet is no great surprise to hear there.

One hears it often enough.

They squeal and speak and play and run

Throw their softball and miss their catches.

They do the things the heedlessness of youth permit them to.

But now and again the world is in the way.

The feet still run, the heedlessness and joy pervade,

But it takes a path it ought not.

Down the rows of cars it takes him.

Giggling, enjoying the feel of the summer grass between toes,

The freedom of running in the sunshine.

He runs there where those proud of their little players have parked their Chevys,

Their Volvos, their Fords along the edge of the road.

Down the row of cars it takes him until

In a moment of exuberance and lost in the joy of it,

He veers, running in ecstasy.

The harsh friction of complex rubberized compounds lock with the asphalt of the roadway

And scream agony against the forces that cannot be muted, cannot be stopped.

The sheer will of the laws of the cosmos will not allow the leering steel death to cease,

Though she weeps and cries as her foot forces the pedal.

A crunch, low and not at all what anyone expects

And the boy rolls through the air in slow motion.

Blink and he is finished, lying there in an off-center heap in the street

As the sirens in the distance herald.

The wind is from the north today. 

It rustles the leaves and gently tickles the sweat on the back of the neck.

The trees sway and a distant sound of a bat hits a ball with a metallic “TINK”.

And we all watch.

We, the uninvolved but drawn watch as the boy lies in the street.

The officer kneels over him, careful but not sure.

And we watch as the ambulance arrives and men and women run toward him.

We watch. 

And secretly….though we would not say it to those who stand by weeping,

We think of our own and are glad they are not the one….

The Blue-Green Madness

When you have reached the deepest depths

And felt blood on your fingertips

When you have looked to the abyss

And danced with devils just like this

When yearnings of a darker kind

Speak to the corners of your mind

When thoughts benign as cannon balls

Invade your heart’s most secret halls

When in a moment of regret

You shudder, wishing you had met

A presence hovering inside

That poisons you like cyanide

Cyanide but strangely sweet

A darkened angel, swift and fleet

That slips into your silent dreams

And stays when It’d be best to leave

And waits for you and calls your name

And senses when you feel the same

And reaches out, like breath of air

And touches, touches, everywhere.

And feels the beating of your heart

Does not withdraw, though you may start

Does not regret the water deep

The places lost, hidden beneath

Who hears the words you do not say

Who wanders far, when gone is day

Who does not fear the hounds that bay

Who comes to you at break of day

When you arrive at deepest sadness

Ride lighting until you have passed it

Oaths men take, then there they cast it

You look into the blue-green madness.

taste the crimson stain

Caustic phrases seething in a cauldron full of bile,

Sephia toned photographs affixed to blood red tile,

A raging beast constrained, pushing up against the stile,

Unfulfilling catastrophic well secured manila file.

Raindrops pulsing on the windows like a fluttering heart beat

Shadows dancing, sly and prancing, acting fancy in the street,

Sickly fuselage of craft whom you may well be loath to meet

Demons flitting, words not fitting, stepping, stepping swift and fleet

Will you be called in that number, will you be the chosen one?

Will you be the cloud that calls so loud, that blocks away the sun?

Shall we gather at the foot of this, your mountain hideaway?

Will you be the orb that burns the clouds and brings again the day?

There the people stand in petty rags and tinker with their toys,

Churning blackness rolls among them, inoculated to the noise.

There you walk and catch their eye, they look with bitter longing, sweet.

Make them seek you, meek beseech you, groping there at your dark feet.

Stepping past with cold abandon, striding heavy on their souls,

Eyes seek the one you look for, one the beacons have for-told

Looking on with heavy malice searching for the face so bold,

Of the lover promised to you when the earth was not yet old.

And in the deepest night you see him, striding heavy, eyes aglow,

Parallel the tracks that flank him, nonchalant, his footsteps slow.

Fate of steam and steel and coal with blinding heat and choking smoke

The Engineer smiles wide and leers and does no whistle blow.

In a set from hell’s theatre, scene is played in motion slow,

Mighty horsemen cloaked in steam do not for one man cease to roll,

And the lover that you sought has gone to places you can’t go,

Now the blackest pitch consumes the darkest corners of your soul

No word, no cry, no grief escapes the eyes there in the rain.

With deadly purpose, concentration, like music being played…

While the engineer who leers on sings a filthy, sick refrain

You dip a sultry finger in and taste the crimson stain.

Fingertip to lips you close your deep fathomless eyes,

And in the taste conceive the little piece of you that also dies.

And stepping in and finding steel rail crypt to call your home,

 Another leer from engineer and crimson of your own.

Shoes

In loving memory of my Grandmother, Norma Jean Pride, written upon her passing on Thanksgiving 2007

The years they swiftly pass us

And all the simple circumstances

Draw us slowly onto paths as yet unknown.

And though we try to stay together

Shifting winds and changing weather

Separate the paths where each of us must go.

Passing thorough the changing seasons

We look ‘round at falling leaves and

Stand amazed at all the time that’s come and gone.

Walking cautiously but heedless,

Seldom pondering the deeds of

Those we love who run a race that’s nearly done.

So we sit in sad reflection,

With the legacy you’ve left and

Look within for strength to take the torch in hand.

To be an oracle of wisdom,

A steady shoulder one may cry on.

One who knows the time to wink and when to stand.

So now with circle never broken,

With your final words now spoken

And the torch you carried passing onward still.

Although we don’t know how to do it

And bitter tears will fall into it,

We slip our feet into the shoes left now to fill.

inner dialog

Said tautological to mythological,

Waxing somewhat philosophical

“I cannot ride this mental bicycle

The wind has made me to an icicle. 

The meal is not at all palatable

Though my opinions are sometimes quite fallible

I have listened to your wordy sall-ables

That are far, far too etymological.

They crawl like something entomological

As if they are alive, something biological

Or alien, flying from cosmological

Can’t seem to die, quite indelible.”

Said Mythological in a manner quite affable,

“Your lack of faith, manners incredulable,

Are founded on purely neurological,

Though you believe them true, unflappable

I daresay you are pathological."

Ruminations of a Tired Cupid

And so the man, the voice, the entity sat,

Sipping a tumbler of brandy, turned inward,

Lost in thoughts his own, for lack of better conversation elsewhere. 

Around him the mild chaos of the lives of men tumbled and purred

And frittered about.  So pathetically endearing, the little people, who ask so much

Who offer so little.  Who place their constrictions upon themselves and then,

When circulation begins to slow, fret and wallow in their imaginary chains.

So mild, the little people.  Like carrots that are convinced they are really peppers.

They strut about, wearing their finery and being lousy in salsa, though they dare not tell it….

They speak to the man as if they know him, as if they have a box for him, as if he would fit.

But he does not fit. 

But passing, now and again, he sees it true.  There, crossing at the crosswalk. 

She is no young one, nor is he.  Together they walk. Knowing, familiar.  That is it.

Just there it is, that lovely thing just touched a stranger’s arm and he shook imperceptibly.

They will go back to their lives again but that was it as well.

And those two, they are gazing, hungry but not for the sandwiches of this café. 

They came in together. They leave, hands clasped with purpose and faster than they came in,

They will burn themselves down and move on in weeks but it is real, just the same.

The man smiles into his glass and thinks.

Time does not constrain it.

Rules are sneered at by it.

It seeks the counsel of none.

When it is, it is right.

When it isn’t, sometimes it is still right.

It can be tempered strong as steel, fragile as a snowflake.

With a knowing glance at these, the little people, the man finishes his drink,

Gathers his bow, his arrows and off he flies, smiling all the while….

Reading Poetry to a Lover

Reclining into my chair I take in the room,

This room, not decadent, not a presumptuous room.

It is simple, comfortable, this room.

Lit dimly by the warm glow of lamps, of firelight. 

The couch is deep. Pillows cover it and embrace her.

Opening the yellow, crinkled pages I settle back, aware of her repose.

Aware of the casual way she lounges, gazing at me with lids low,

Gazing as I turn the page and speak.

This room, this quiet room resonates as I pull words from the page and release them,

My voice a vaguely annunciated rumble, the tiny sounds of my lips touching,

The pauses as I raise the glass and wet my throat. 

Immersed in the words, taken in by the shadowy nuance of verse

I travel here, there.  She travels as well.

In my periphery I see her as she watches me.

Her mouth open slightly, neck craning imperceptibly to capture the subtleties.

The flowing robe sits loose on her, a pleasant silhouette against the couch,

Breathing, at ease as I drift through the delicacies of syncopated speech,

Flowing along the meandering paths of a poem. 

Now and again I elevate my gaze to rest on her twinkling brown eyes, half closed but watching still,

Watching my lips as I speak, seeing the motions of my hands as I turn the pages,

Feeling the air as it pulses with the phonetic trappings.

My voice drops in uttering the final stanza. 

A comfortable and contented silence fills the room, this room.

It is not the silence of loss, nor the pain of ending. 

It is the silence of being complete.

I raise the glass, soothing the parched lips, throat.

She slides her head back onto the pillows, closes her eyes and releases a luxuriant sigh,

A sigh of ease. Contentment. 

Basking in the benign apathy of her countenance,

I raise the glass again, taste the easy bite

 and close my own eyes for a moment.

Neuro-Fibro-Mitosis

Lurking in the shadows you can feel it waiting there

A clandestine sensation waiting for a chance to tear

A sinister and sickly voice that knows to smell your fear

A killer rush and phantom waiting till you’re not aware

And as the delicate waves muster it offers a warning song

The icy fingers trace the paths of flesh and nerve and bone

And though it has not stricken you anticipate the pain

And clench the fist and teeth know resistance is in vain.

Perhaps it would be better to tear off offending part

To rip from your body and let healing finally start

But impotent you sit and wait, knowing the time is near

And with the slightest fire the wave touches your primal fear.

A slow motion explosion, ripping, tearing of the bone

Red hot hydraulic cylinders expanding, up they grow

Convulsing pulses of sensations full of fire and heat

And boiling terror grips, body rigid head to feet.

In time the fog will lift and it will fade into the din

Of ten thousand synapsed messages that scream but cannot win

Oriri Ex Cinere

In the bitterest of time I am now standing here with you,

Looking over my own shoulder, never quite sure what to do

How inverted should I bend, should I grovel? Should I lose?

Is there something in your soul that may be prompting you to move?

That would beckon you to stand, that would drive you now to rise

That would push you somehow past your self-destructive compromise

That would plant within your heart the tiniest of little seeds

To make you see it is ok to reach out, filling your own needs.

I see you lay your own soul bare to come to someone else’s aid

But the ones who need you most are standing lonely in the rain

Praying prayers they don’t believe unto a god they know is fake,

Praying you will come to see the stupid chances that you take.

It’s like you cannot be convinced that you are one who really matters

You will let them take your life and tear it slowly into tatters

Never seeing those who navigate the dreams your falling shatters

And ignoring all the rocks on which you know they will be battered…

When I try to speak to you, you act like I’m the one to blame.

I rise in anger to defend you, I’m accosted by your rage.

 This contemptible paralysis that holds you like a cage

Looks to me to be the door for the escape it contemplates.

And yes, I know you have some demons that are eating at your mind.

And yes, I know the battles you have fought are bigger far than mine.

And yes, I’ve tried to sit back patiently, I’ve tried to give you time

But I swear to god you’re running and you’re ‘bout to cross a line

So how the fuck can I fill all the roles in which I have to delve,

And dig the ore to make the metal of the man I need to meld,

Build the life to rise above this little condescending hell.

I can’t fight for you if you won’t fucking fight now for yourself!

And I must ask myself how far it is I’m willing now to go

Shall I place my own in danger, shall I give away my soul?

To accommodate this sick, sadistic need you seem to hold

To deface your own existence, offer penance to the world?

It brings me boiling up in anger, being forced to such a place

My love for you is stunted, shadowed by the sick disgrace

Watching one I hold so dear willing to walk in such a place

Open eyed and ever heedless, give yourself to needless fate.

I want so bad to grab your shoulders, hurt you as I shake and yell

Looking at the things you take in, swallowing a dose of hell…

You will sit and meekly eat the shit they pile upon your plate

But when I say you deserve better it is my words you won’t take!

And I’m afraid a time will come when choices will not be your own

When I will have to turn my back on you and save my flesh and bone

When I will have to stand and say I will not offer up, condone

A willingness to sacrifice the very marrow of your bones.

And I fight against the time that darkened day may finally come

And I steel myself against the pain, I will my essence numb

I try to cultivate the hope I learned so long ago to shun

Rage grows swiftly now within me and I know I’ll be undone

And yes, I know you have some demons that are eating at your mind.

And yes, I know the battles you have fought are bigger far than mine.

And yes, I’ve tried to sit back patiently, I’ve tried to give you time

But I swear to god you’re running and you’re ‘bout to cross a line

So how the fuck can I fill all the roles in which I have to delve,

And dig the ore to make the metal of the man I need to meld,

Build the life to rise above this little condescending hell.

I can’t fight for you if you won’t fucking fight now for yourself!

For yourself….

Choices

What is it that effects us
That indelibly corrects us
That consumes us and directs us
From this place the yonder nexus.

Simplest and bland decision
Causing alchemy and fission
Generating fate, collision
Possibilities, a million.

For today we make small choices
Reach and pluck out random voices
Listening to all the noises
One now opens, one now closes.

One was left there in Nairobi
There was one who did not know me.
One who could not move so slowly
As the blood of creatures lowly.

Paths that veered to things I wonder,
One to podiums of thunder.
Things that ripped my soul asunder
Found the tree that I hid under.

I recall intimate laughter
The proximity that mattered
Questions that my mind did scatter
Feeble gestures meant to flatter.

There was one benign deception
My Chevrolet, her fair complexion
A little child that went unmentioned
I only smiled at all her tension.

Looking now through all those seasons
Altercations, all the reasons
I cannot fathom the deeds when
In these fields I planted seeds in,

So in these voiced and low inflections
Passing through life’s intersections
When I change the road’s direction
Is it a good or ill correction?

I don’t suppose I’ll know for sure
To fate I am forced to defer
That mistress so polite, demure
Calls to me with lush allure.

Of course I know I can’t complain
Though tempted I must quick refrain
And gather up my wits again
To stroll the road I’m strolling in.

For I have tasted of such sweetness
And the carnal things that greet us
I know things that kings and priests did
Dim lit lace meant just to tease us.

Though a myriad of pathways
My feet have not the pleasure to grace
I can spend most all of my days
Contemplate each lovely face.

For each one it was that made me
Though my will often forbade me
Letting their seduction take me
Till my good sense did forsake me.

This dirt is not over sacred
My own feet cannot but make it
It’s no great path but I’ll take it
And smile inside, deeply elated...

Many Minded Man

I am the many minded man
I've many eyes and many hands
I've many feets on which to stands
I've countless ears and countless plans

I've notions, inclinations plenty
Both beginning and some ending
The contradictions oft uncanny
Call me Legion, I am many

The voices I won't claim to know
Though with me they do always go
Though push and pull and seeds they sow
And somehow all have me in tow

I've searched for I and cannot find
The corner where the I does hide
The name in which he does reside
And casts his eye from side to side
And rides upon the rumpled tide
That flies about the mountainside
That leads the mind then runs and hides
When ponder I to identify

So I infer there is no one
Is no father, is no son
There is no chaste anointed one
That binds and finds, unites this pun

I am the many minded man
I've many eyes and many hands
Cavorting in the boundless land
where, groundless, still they all do stand