Tag: Blank Verse

Snapshot — Kitchen, 8:17 am

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The last two out the door, and off to school,
A silence comes, as deadly as a flower,
That though he welcomes it, perfumes his mind
With poison, bringing sleep or even worse.

He calls so many things by other names
Than those most apropos. It is a curse:
To feel inside the marrow of his bones
The emptiness he won’t admit pervades

The water circulation, or the heat,
Or air that flows within the kitchen walls.
He will not say; and though he reads and writes
Of all the things that minds these days attend,

He dares not say the word. For life begins
In crevasses and cracks where shoots can grow;
And also ends, when light cannot get in,
And seals form over openings too soon

The Clouds, Like Us

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The clouds, like us, seem made of naught but dust:
We travel over hard and rocky ground,
Through countless miles agitated strife,
Then pour our dirty selves back down to earth,
As ash to ash, and dust to dust, indeed.

The clouds, like us, chaotic and obscure:
We tangle in each other, slipping out,
And heaving back into confusing mist.
The past, the future, both – so much to know
That we can never fathom, though we try,
To find some shape or order in it all.

The clouds, like us, whose days are hard and brief:
But in whose tears are growth, and life, and hope.

Solitary Walks – III

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The mind goes back to when he was alive
To possibility – and to his heart –
A bench out in the woods, a moment shared,
And how the world seemed bigger than it was

But there is only silence, and a way
Of seeing things that comes when overgrowth
Crawls over landscape, tree, and every inch
Of heart he left exposed to feel its touch

And who is she now, she that he recalls?
Comes there the night or day, where’er she is,
That she remembers him, remembers this?
Or does the wild ivy hide the bench?

For all that is connection can be lost;
For summer burns and winter kills with ice,
And old age holds illusions to the last,
Though none may sit again as they did there

Here, Again

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I close my eyes, and you are here again.
Your hand upon my shoulder, just a boy;
As though by magic, wrinkles smoothed away,
And graves released their peaceful, sleeping ones.

Your voice I hear, the ringing baritone,
The joys of harmony, and hearts content,
Though labor and the struggle, even then,
Put creases on a face not far from youth.

Your aftershave – I feel it even now –
The way my nose would tickle when up close,
The eyes that swept your family, then the front,
Of trying to, believing in, the good.

My eyes are open now, and all is still.
The sun is slanting in, and moving by;
And here, again I’ll feel that love is best
When it appears unbidden and aware

when all the colors…

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a saturday, with many staying in
to watch a football game, or be with friends:
he wandered out to see the autumn leaves,
as new in town he was, and restless kept

the stretch of woods he walked was gorgeous dressed;
he listened not to music, just the sound
of wind and cars and people as they went,
and felt the cool of autumn brush his neck

and saw a woman standing by a bridge:
a walking path above a tiny creek,
who stood there leaning with a book in hand,
and in it, for a bookmark, was a leaf

she said “hello” as he was walking by,
and he said “hi. what are you reading, there?”
“a book on inner sanctity,” she laughed,
and he did, too. and then he asked her name

she told it him, as he then told her his;
he said he was still new in town, and worked
at such-and-such a place. and she remarked
upon the colors of the fall that year

so step back with me now, and merely watch:
see unsuspecting love peek out its head –
as two who set out just to be alone,
now walking slowly through the glorious fall

when all the colors they had never known
were seen at once in all that may yet be:
come watch them now, as i do, in my mind,
as he discovers she discovers he

for love’s a story always with a start,
be it one of beginning or surprise,
when all the colors we have ever dreamed
get wrapped up all in one,
and so
do we

A Dream of Summertime

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She wants to feel the summertime again,
To know the touch of hopefulness and joy;
She wants someone to love the girl she was
And is, within the shadows of her room

  along the lake, hair glimmering and wet,
  a bright new swimsuit, laughing friends in tow,
  with music from a boombox on the shore
  and dancing on boy’s shoulders into night

  the towel-drying, and the backward glance,
  the brothers from across the lake who wave
  as they go down the road towards their house
  and one of whom she thinks she kind of likes —

She turns to see what time it is again.
It’s barely two o’clock, and she’s awake,
And full of something like what was a dream
That just slipped through her mind, like sudden breeze

But wait, was there, like, sunlight on a lake?
And something smelled like coconut, she thinks;
She hears Pandora play a Frampton song,
And drifts back into something close to sleep

She wants to feel the summertime again.
She wants to be alive, and full, and free —
But there, within the shadows of her room,
She knows: even the old pictures

Are filtered

Near Here

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I grew up here, near here, and walked these sands
  as thoughtless as the waves; I chased love young,
  and drank regret, and burned through seasons of
  revolt and gathered mastery with fists —
  as fate rolled on, and washed new times ashore.

I brought each dawn an offering in gray:
  a meretricious emptiness set high
  upon an altar made of lightning whelk
  and carefully arranged to suit my mood
  which was, too often, on display in full.

The pandemonium of onset hope,
  the fantasies, less carnal then oblique,
  were here arrayed, lived out, then set aside,
  as I took every path except the straight
  and bruised myself impatiently enough.

Tell everyone who comes: the dream is real:
  it’s just that dreamers work with faulty tools
  and scan horizons for what isn’t there,
  near where you are, near here, and everyplace —
  near here, near where you are, and everyplace.

Across the White Abyss

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A shade I see, across the white abyss…

Does love tell tales, or does it silent stride
Across the frozen yard in wintertime?

I know of fires, burning lower now,
That still retain the passion in their smoke,
Although their coals be few, and scattered poor.

Though breath be seen, it is a ghost’s lament:
To see what can’t be felt, to hear a voice,
But know that feelings shall no more have sway,
And have life without living, night and day.

The pain may not be felt, but still be there —
What’s true of pain is also true of hope,
But that is more than twice as hard to know.

But even still, the boiling kettle needs
The water we must fetch from down the way…

… across the white abyss, into the void

the truth, it breathes but briefly

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the truth, it breathes but briefly on the march,
the eyes, they scan so quickly for the dream;
you sat, ensconced, beneath the tree of peace,
the years of fear now ripples passed away.

take love from off the dresser where ’twas left:
(if you’ve the heart to grow a little smile)
then send me news, from underneath the tree
of how you’ve grown, and how your heart has leapt.

for valentines and bears and father’s tears,
for mysteries that flow, to flow again;
the truth, it breathes but briefly on this earth —
but love is all, as it was all… back then