many the days I could’ve stopped,
many the ways I should’ve gone —
ever and onward, homeward drawn,
always the route I don’t adopt —
why, when I knew, did I not cease?
is there no balm in Gilead?
road, carry home this old nomad
back to his place of calm
and peace
she lies awake and wonders where it went
the glow that once surrounded who she was
for all the hidden talents she’s misspent
for random choices, lacking a “because”
in stillness now, she thinks of one mistake
her mother’s eyes with tears were dabbed and flecked
for all that woman’s faults, for goodness sake
she didn’t merit wanton disrespect
but now, her mother gone beyond her reach
the tears beset her eyes, and she feels shame
the lessons only loneliness can teach
when there is no one else that’s left to blame
but she’s no worse than most: it’s how she’s built
to lie awake awash in waves of guilt
The tower brings the earth to sky,
The water brings the sky to earth;
Maybe we’ll know it, by and by —
The reason for our life, and birth,
Or maybe, we are meant to be
Twixt woe, and what’s uproarious
In equal measures, to reflect
On what’s above
And glorious
(for my wife — )
I wouldn’t write monologues
If I knew how to have conversations.
With her, I know how –
Closeness, where
The necessity of distance is
Understood;
Distance, where
The reality of closeness is
Felt.
The younger man’s hunger to always be joined, and
The older man’s desire to always see her flourish;
To see her safe to give full play to her own powers
So long as life’s vicissitudes allow for it.
The perpetual amazement of knowing someone
Wants me to cause me pleasure;
The unceasing desire to be her pleasure,
Or her sounding board,
Or her solace, as needed.
In a bare room, she is
The only decoration required;
And when she is deep in thought,
The world slows itself into kindness.
We only get so many spins of the Earth;
Eventually, it flings us off —
But when the day comes
That this planet travels on without me,
I will have known the miracle that is
The creation of a new whole universe of reality
Out of two people
As the wind moves ever pointless
Through the flatland of our making
Nightmares creep through visions voiceless
Winding, running, crawling, snaking
Far horizons e’er receding
Infinite our nightmares range:
All around, oppressed and speeding
Pointless winds of senseless change
Pointless winds
Of senseless change
= = = = =
Photo Credit : © Underworld | Dreamstime.com – Very High Wind On The Beach Photo
I’m in a little bit of slog,
Although I’m mostly fine;
It’s 6 o 4, and I’m outside
And waiting in a line.
For I have duties here to do,
At least, so as I see —-
And though I hate a line, it is
For our democracy
Or so I learned in Civics class.
And yet, unless I’m blind,
I look to see, at least right now,
We’re all of us
Aligned
They climbed into the centrifuge
In search of some new febrifuge,
But simply learned
The more they burned
The more it all was subterfuge.
For aching shouts and vanity --
Ineptitude, inanity --
Are all that's left
When we're bereft:
The sum of all insanity
That haunts our dreams like revenants;
The scattered ghosts of evidence,
The caliper
That we prefer
To all that could mean relevance.
So here we are in disarray,
With words that twist and hide our way,
Yet what's injust
We don't mistrust
Entranced with all the
Shadow play
This bayou opened to the bay
Which opened to the sea;
We sat as children in our love
Beneath this lonesome tree
They said we couldn’t know of love
Too young of years were we;
And yet true lovers we were then
If ever lovers be
This spot remains as then it was,
As in my memory;
The smell and taste of love’s first kiss
Beneath
This lonesome
Tree
(“This Lonesome Tree” – 4-21-2015)
she showered in her morning hope
untangled from arrays
of fixed and rigid system-folk
who plague her nowadays —-
and where the water once flowed clear
she finds entrapping mire,
the dreams that were her memories
she fears will soon expire
but there is hope, there’s ever hope
beyond analysis —-
you think there’s nothing there for you,
but there is, friend,
there is
