96 Remembers 69

Ours was the grey by the willowing bay,

Where tides, alone, took dry away.

I let mine flow with nothing to show,

But that was nearly a century ago.

Might I have saved those colors I shaved

For just another year,

Would I be brighter and most of life lighter?

In sight of that, I fear.

Still, home is the place, no matter my face,

Where ambrosial colors draw near and embrace.

My sun-dried sin, so real back then,

Likely that he has forgotten again.

Beyond the I of the Glass

Behold the cruelty of tomorrow,

A bridged world of electric settings

Spreading moments and names

So thin, manageable, pale,

As ghosts try ghosts on for size.

Seeing you see me, close as to kiss

Yet far and real as the stars –

Bodies between memory and actuality –

I smile and find the night charming.

Goodnight, goodbye

Is as much a curse to the sun

As a removal of a face from a face

Or to die.

Two figures in dense, violet night

Face a glass pane.

No pity or despondence in their sighs

Upon the glass betwixt their eyes.

Behold the light drifting by and through,

Upon your face, a streak of loveliness.

Speak, and if silence only sakes your thoughts,

Think to love beyond your voice and grasp.

We spend our mind beyond that glass:

A foggy blue, synthetic wall, perfectly in the way,

Unscathed and cold by touch.

The weakness of our form fixes our thoughts

And fascinates us with the unknown world

Beyond the I of the glass,

Yet still and silent are the stars.

Oh how they shine! Bending our forms

To dream and sing and scheme of the divine.

This obsession with what we cannot obtain alone

Separates us from the objection –

Each self, upon feet, upon a bank,

Fearing the waters of chaos and drowning in

The unnatural acceptance of I won’t be,

Goodnight, goodbye –

And fills our hearts with longing.

I dream of the warmth on the other side,

Of the smells and shades christening my breath.

Beyond the glass, the sounds are clear and igniting.

My spirit, none-sided, sends me through the glass,

A colorless, thin resolution dividing –

To those moving lips and shadows,

Sounding not, minding not –

Where fallen soft, your hair, billowing grace

Asphyxiates despair.

Traiku for the Man with His Head in the Sand

Sunrise in my eyes

Sunrays in my box of sand

Imagination

Triassic jewelry

Priceless rot of savage time

Museum pantomime

Once fierce now hallow

Secrets safe without a sound

Sleeping underground

A Trio at Dawn

As the moon shine will affix

Upon most secret reaction to pressure,

Sands intercept tide-tales through secret transaction of treasure.

Soft, as voices in leaves freed,

Rainfall, overwhelmed with yearning for the sea,

Doubles down, tossing out lengthy promises of pleasure.

The secrets, passed through a mix

Of fresh air, fruit flies, and lust of some measure,

Drift like perfumes, sightlessly seen, filling clouds with jealousy.

The sycamore, the sky, and the mind between

"Departure, Serene"

A whisper to the sycamore

In the holy warmth of summer

Shrouds our hearts among wildflowers.

These greens and shades of earth

Neither call us to a table,

Nor point to the beaten paths of fathers.

Simply and softly,

These woods whisper of the truth

In our mortality.

The wind laps up the dew,

Nudges the morning listeners,

Peels the leaves from the trees.

The vines long to dance,

To hold themselves together.

By the silences, the ibis lands,

Red as an apple, lonesome as I.

A consideration and departure, serene.

We rise, climbing in the breath of the sun’s praise

With our spirits outliving stage after stage of affairs.

We grip the majestic –

How the mountains wait in confinement,

The streams of life, content to wander

Through the sumptuous stone blades

And to the ocean, what a grave site.

Her mighty waves, like wings,

Lift to expose coverts, wild,

And plunge into the face of permanence.

The woods, in its course, mend mortality.

As a shell clinging to a shell,

A cicada fixed upon the sycamore,

We remember how loyal these colors remain.

And still our memory separates us from this canvas.

The bleakness hangs us with green sashes on,

A part of the past hanging just past the arm.

Strength discloses in the grazing of our hands,

A whisper to the trees.

The Lion-hearted Man and His Summer Moon

A roaring at midnight

For the light I adore

Did nothing but my peace restore.

Darkness deepening signs that curled

Into these lines of yonder world.

Sightless state draws passion from

Sunburnt fashion, what was numb.

Canyons rolling sounds I’ve made

To such astounding everglade,

Where a heart of woes roars from my face,

'Tis soothing hum in such a place.

A region conscious as blackened street

And I slackened above my feet,

Relaxed in unoffending tide,

Your beauty sending light to guide.

(Out, you shone to kindle then.

I hope to dream of hope again.)

Every stand ‘neath mystic moon

Is now cordially bound to June,

When resting means return to thee

And waking streams of poetry.

With her face in my dreams

I am cornered tonight,

Seized by what I bravely invite.

Deep Earplugs

A capsule-like remedy wedges distance

Between edges and existence.

White noise turns black on these nights,

Cold, with warmth sliding into place,

Thorns budding, volcanoes melting into the sea.

You can hear the coals, tired beneath the flames,

And the dampened voices become tuneful.

The snow tames the briers, and the pond

Sleeps in the stillness of the meadow.

The white upon the evergreen falls with

A silent sigh of a distant storm.

The crystal cups, hidden from the moon,

Gather before the firelight

To gleam in their emptiness and never die.

Whitehorse

Up the streams of grassland stones
Beyond the trails of leaves and cones,
She smells the daisies, noses past,
Wonders, perhaps, if they will last.
Or does she pray over poisoned weather,
How nothing lives then dies together?

The painter is patient among the flowers,
Leaving the scene to the evening hours,
Forgiving the sun for abandonment
And walking alone through moonlight lent.

The see-through drapes are shifting clouds,
Drifting high above the crowds.
Uncrumpled bill upon the table,
Traded gladly for something stable -
Something strong and soft, of course,
Like the face of a whitehorse.

Shyly grazing near the streams,
Almost motionless, she seems,
tasting of the rotting fruit,
Soft like her and without root.

A Reason to Tarry

Oh, how I long to keep thee warm
With curing words, beseech the storm
Of vile suit, I'd take its mess,
Hold it back till calmed distress.

Had I the means to leave behind
Such heavy thoughts of warming kind,
I'd turn them loose upon your mind,
Stir your soul and heat you'd find,

Skittering across your skin,
Warming from within,
Where love relied on stealth
And took no risk of health,
Turned your face from chance
And fall befell romance.

Then winter, which through wrath of cold,
Dried the earth, where love consoled.
'Twas not enough to twist my path
Nor cause me worry winter's wrath.

Oh, how I long to keep thee warm
With purring words, beseech the storm.
I'd lay me down, confront the pest,
And hold it back till calmed unrest.

Meant it the means cause cold depart,
I'd give to thee my beating heart.

Tirement

My father drives a bus now,
Tips his hat to those midnight vultures,
Circling and waiting for death.

The road gets narrow as the bus rattles,
Struggling in the moonlight.

If only failure had feelings enough to taste hatred,
My life might sustain itself heartily
On that poisonous road between us.

In our dreariness, my father mistakes
The sun for the moon,
Once in - then out of - sight,
A distant light, peering through the fog.

He picks me up
But does not know my name.

• The Gardens Face the Road Home
  
  Walking home, swift as the wind,
  I pass the gardens of a friend
  who seems to wait on guard at her gate.
  
  Curious to unveil her mood,
  maybe taste that garden food,
  I greet her on that lovely lawn.
  
  Walking me through floral rows,
  she laughs as if the garden knows
  what she has brought to this sacred spot.
  
  Curious, how the wind and trees
  with softly soothing harmonies,
  would cause us to hold each other.
  
  Walking home, our day-light dims
  in smells of evening, romance swims.
  Beyond this night and it's farewell,
  I cherish how deep in love I fell.

The Beachy Road

On the beachy road

filled with golden grass,

motion in the wind

and watch your worries pass.

Keeping to the plan

and meeting them at noon,

I never would have tasted

the love I did that June.

Coming to a corner,

walking straight ahead,

listen to the wind

and wade the river bed.

Feeling too alone,

the coldness hits my feet.

I wander out the trees,

into the sun for heat.

Happening upon

an orchard down a hill,

shaded by an apple tree,

a girl with eyes to kill.

A momentary death

of portions of my sum,

I gently raise my hand,

she motions me to come.

Heavy chest and shoulders,

sunlight in my eyes,

swishing through the grass

and face to face, she sighs.

A warm bag of apples

hanging on her arm,

tight, little nose

and lips of wit and charm.

Beginning, my name is,

I stop with nothing more,

holding up her finger she

says let not us bore,

Let’s be closer

Let's be true,

Vague in nothing

We say we do,

Let’s be poets

Writing love,

History till time above.

Longing in my eyes,

I take a closer look.

With my arms around her,

we fold up like a book.

Oh, how the stars would shine,

if stars there would have been,

lighting all the signs

to bring us together again.

Hugging till the fears

lost face in time.

Folding down to sit

and love by pantomime.

Handing me an apple,

she smiles from within.

Laying under a tree,

my world begins to spin.

Ablaze with love I chatter on

about the ways I’ve been.

Across my heart my fingers dabble,

admitting every sin.

Hurting just a little,

I listen to her voice,

a life much more brittle

with pain in every choice.

Forgetting all my friends,

dreaming till at last

sleeping, warm and pleasant,

dreams that go by fast.

Was it in the morning

or later in the day?

I awoke with emptiness,

an orchard filled with gray.

Can’t believe she’s gone,

standing up I see

she left me several apples,

or are they from the tree?

The Ghost of Forgotten Lines

It came and sat down gently on my lap,
Climbed onto the paper
And into a nap.

In softest voice, twice I told my brother,
Who calmly suggested
I write another.

• Moonlight
  
  by Paul Verlaine
  
  Your soul is a chosen landscape
  Charmed by masquers and bergamasquers,
  Playing the lute and dancing, and almost
  Sad beneath their whimsical costumes,
  
  Even as they sing in the minor mode
  Of triumphant love, and a life of good fortune,
  They don't seem to believe in their happiness,
  And their song blends with the moonlight,
  
  With the still moonlight, sad and lovely,
  Which sets the birds in the trees to dreaming,
  And makes the fountains sob with ecstasy,
  The tall slim fountains among the marble statues.

I Walk and Waste

The air on Spaulding’s farm,

Like haiku music,

Vibrates with a spirit

Of patience and wonder.

I walk along a cartpath,

Into the woods.

I find that all I need

Is the sun,

That servant to sound,

This pleasuring-ground.

As these woods peer into muddy pools,

Perhaps searching the reflection of the skies,

I listen and dream of their families,

Silently weaving generations of arboreal-labor.