are so many warm surprises and tales
in life that it’s hard to know where to begin and
true stories of people watching people are certainly a
fascinating spectacle not to mention specie in their own
right of ways while the body snatchers communicate
one with each another primarily to benefit
indwelling desires that have little to
do with or
certainly
to say with any
who are involved but it’s a
humorous game which keeps them
absolutely engaged in a facetious sor t
of way I laugh I cry & wonder while
walking in garnished varieties what
will I wake to possibly find in
tomorrow’s dawning
day.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Aquas Sleeping
Seduced by the
allure of her pearl scented greenish
eyes luminous and sapphire kissed one can
only dream of bathing with her in aquas moon
light you think to wake her from her enchanted
sleep but magic protects her passionate leap
beyond as she descends into midnight
safe beyond the reach of any
casual introspection.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
As long
as there
have been lovers there have been
their words whether captured in life’s plastic
poem prisms a cant a painted bouquet of lover’s
toiling souls visible for all the world to see along
the words of joyous times other words be of
languishing eyes but as always the
words inspired encouraged
and shelter a stage for the
devotees to love words speaking
within the multiples of thymes and titles
drenched in burgundy and lime italicized fonts
and broken pieces from hearts wounded writings
as one born in the fire of histories daunts as from
a poet chi I admire after a nip and tuck where
do the cognoscenti go to uncover in
seclusion but for to
retire.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Barnyard Conversation
This sitting takes you on
a quaint notwithstanding picturesque
little journey back to an old midwestern barn
yard conversation where me ears were accosted
by the neighbor ‘bout how there had been weeds
growing in me garden! all I could really tell ‘em
was that they simply came with the purchase of
the territory and they had been living there
since about when time began which
was much longer than I and too
how diligently I tried one
whole year to evict
them on numerous
occasions and accounts
time and time again one time
when I finally after calling in the authorities
I got everyone out... you know what happened..!
they all snuck right back in that very same
night.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
de_keeper
keeper_de_gwaltney
was an awful pest but there was plenty
of others and you mustn’t blame him for all
your crusty troubled messes because most of
it is your own darn fault and the sooner
you realize it the better the decline
and fall of practically every
body got blamed on
him while he wasn’t any where
near all the given places I forget what really
happened and I’d hate to hear another garbled
litany from any of you as none of you seem to
agree this is unlike a thing I’ve ever heard
or know I sit and watch all you on TV
while he utters not a word you
really should see your
selves breaking
all the rules
and if you
really had
any eyes at
all you’d know
that your such fools.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Epiphanies
The
sudden
epiphany of
celebrating those
manifestation of maintained
pyramiding quilted
snows a comprehension of perceptions in
reality by means of sudden intuitive realization
undulating against yellow street lamps near our red
fenced yard the essences of meaning some thing to the
ones who had followed me all the way home from the
house just down the street I think it was a drug
dealership with chest burning I burst
into the kitchen and tried
to articulate the fury
of my aftermaths yearning
vision to reconstruct for them my
lemonish glimpse into the sublime and
all through their rippling incomprehension I
heard the gradual silencing of every voice there
talkin’ and by the time they looked up from their
typing just for a second reminded me to take off
my muddy shoes in the house inhibition had
festered and grown in me like a feast of
divine nature a corruption a wheel
of black swirls engulfed me
as I gently tiptoed
out.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Evolution
Ponder the
paper clip holding the pieces all together
notice the Post-Script-Note, look at the package
it came in or the plastic wrapping the joke I stop and
examine the history and development of all those itty
bits and pieces of the lives and the jobs and money
spent and the trees that went into the printing
most just take as a benevolence it’s
fascinating that their
author explains
nothing in their
defense or the millions
wasted on their failures as trees
wept lament such demise and alibis
never no clear crispy manuscripts
just lies.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Is it oK
to say I love your
heart you are so real and your writing
cuts me all apart... you see... these feelings that
you’ve started... tearing my inside parts... I’d tell
you that I love you but I’m sure you’d break
my heart... I cannot even show you how
wonderful your writings been
while these rains still fall
through my broken heart
caked with ice and snow these
empty wings of orate grace I bid thee
farewell this place let me go forget my past
mistakes let me forgive you for heaven’s sake
please spread compassion softly o’er my skin
guide me back to love again be the one to
to let me go that I again may be whole
let the stillness flood my
soul.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Justifying Needs
Love can
be a lonely poets physical going to
bed wrapping their identities protectively around
so their lover won’t see their naked spirits never quite
headed or knowing what they want said from each other
and too are afraid that when they do it will be both too
much or not enough leading to justify their needs
to touch and hold the each other.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
My Cannas Bloom
The earth is warm
and fertile I touch her and she don’t mind so
much that I can’t really touch her the way I’d want to as I
dance over her lands and such she sends heavy lingering scents
of cannas for comfort which is so much to joy things that leaf and
bud breaking through barren bark just to live again reminding
me I’m not only alone within a dormant time as she sends
out new tendrils throwing out shoots wondering
of the plans of her tinder gardener
who grew such a love
for her for
such a
mysterious plan.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
My Honey
No, no,
no it’s not just some sort of exotic
reading machine this uniquely book shaped
box with built in memory and bookmarks coloured
pages and also talks props up perfectly in almost any
spot great for surfing the bed or a comfy rocker with
pillow for head I’m no longer tackled to a messy
desk I can rest on the sofa maybe catch
some rest I can even have a hand
free for my clipboard
and mouse
you know I can
even take it out of my house
it tucks right into a neat little pack I can
take it to lunch when I have a snack and could
you believe they were so bright of all the things
it has its own light I don’t have to toil finding
a date or all the worry of being late... I
have a laptop honey..!
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Occupant
She wore her depression
like a queen wears a gown each new composite
diagnosed adding feathers and such around such tragedy
which had been and were fixed like jewels into a psychic
pseudo crown which didn’t matter though success or
failure but failure for her was far better in the long
run as it seemed each person she despised
came to be a jester in her courts lying
around she guffaws at them but
thought how they used
to laugh together
back before
laughter
became so
permeated with
subtleties that it was
served in darkened rooms by
you so keep studying psychiatry spread
your passions thin and you just had to paint
your palace black well take symposium with
alter-egos then if that’s what you want to
do, Lord... I just hope they don’t
turn you in.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Onomatopoetic
While watching on me computer screen with de
phonetic wife suddenly how I was so horrified that I just
had to ask her twice are there two sets of rules for writing
or need I read them thrice I comforted myself by saying
I know rots of apparent words they do not but then
I wondered later if they were hoping/playing
it was only not but I could see in it
me spelling that t’was partial
you see I could spell
onomatopoetic I
think but day
all’s had
to check
it out in
some dictionary.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Projections
Cars and courier vans
glide through the panorama of my double
laned mind reflecting as our daughter pretends were
her private video cam on her very own site sometimes in
her dream we star together lit by the supernovas of bees
wax tapered halos speechless portraits of horses with
gape-toothed child grinning but I am filled with
the snow and trees containing auras
of street lights framed by
glass doors draped
in Christmas winter
lights like a shawl around
my shoulders shimmers in the cool
wind of all that’s common cold and fine
rejoicing in the solemn cold bare street
salt parched and bleached.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Still flickers
the
thought of you in the mirror of my thoughts
although today I’m here lying within another’s arms I
thought oft of you with disabling sorrow and then my heart got
darkened and cold filled with a deafening silent horror wondering
whether you know me or even love me still the way we used to be
tonight again you stirred the emotion with anxious ferocity I’ve
always cared for you through wind storm and rain you had
always held my hand during the awful pain the future
had brung I could of never matched the love
you instilled within me deep
but I wake knowing
I have to go
where
He
leads
for heaven’s
sake please forgive my
paths they’ve never been straight.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Vision’s Child
There will
be times when vision fails and
memory is inadequate to our needs of
light oh so carefully you scan my face
sensing each texture with hands of
delight calculating each caress
o’er curving cheek could
hold with long hair
whether blond
or gold also
the fluffy tender
lips I offer told how
you would need
fashioning a
memory
in a
tentative
faery likeness.
(C) 2000 Dale Wayne Van Sickle Gwaltney
* * *
Wandering
Wandering through twilight
drenched thought missing a touch I tucked
my arms in around myself and huddled in nights
songs caress shivering at what ought to be how long
will my remembrance be caressing your soft breath
in nights late evening and so insistent on the
