On Reading "A Portrait of a Lady" at Sunset
these seductive sunsets
in all their finery
know no counterfeit modesty
never false
to their nature
reveling in their
ancient glory,
they spread nightly
before us,
like a lover
they forgive us
our dusty instruments
forlorn in a corner,
our talent deficit,
and our sightless gaze
as we,
without malice,
yet forgetting the
wisdom of a child
fail to see,
and sit inside
reading in July
of April sunsets
in another land,
from the pen
of a respected poet,
with our curtains
drawn.
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The Villain
~ A villinelle
It is the chase that pulls him to her side
best not to capture what is dreamt a prize
for fantasy's an ocean deep and wide.
To dream, past feeling, of a lovers eyes
better than to hold them for a time,
it is the chase that pulls him to her side.
She sears a path which sparkles cross the skies
reality - the dream, at best belies
the fantasy of ocean, deep and wide.
Draped in stars, he writes his sonnets fine
satisfied with art, its sublime lines,
for it is the chase that pulls him to her side.
Her perfect form will never be denied
if eyes never spy the imperfection's brine
polluting fantasy of ocean, clear and wide.
The poet dreams, perfection's pen will find
the perfect soul to match his gypsy eye;
it is the chase that pulls him to her side.
Only death is perfect in our time
thus, she will be exulted if she die,
a fantasy of ocean, so deep and wide,
for it's the chase that pulls him to her side.
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Her Heart
is an forlorn farm
house, hours down
a rainy highway 99.
The trucks rumble by
occasionally,
rattling her dishes
with their residue
of half eaten meals
- why eat alone
after all.
The shaking tilts
the pictures on her walls
and cant the panoramic
scenes of places
she shall never see.
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Fiend
The knife that goes through you
when the perplexing
breezes of your love's
something more important to do
propel this train of thought --
jealousy's nightmare
vehicle, to your center
bidding you to buy the dream,
of a cheek on the belly
of the one you love.
Pity you, going full pace
through a narrow tunnel
with a head full of the dirty
bedsheets, imagining --
how you are now pushed aside
for a more delectable morsel.
You hold
no folded love note,
safe in your pocket
to derail this line
of thinking,
your brain suspects,
sails full force toward,
the smell of another
in her ear
the voice of another
in her hair.
Driven by the wind
of the unsaid,
unwritten,
loving lines
the sounds of
cracking bones
are heard,
as the train crushes
the marrow
of dreams beneath
its speeding wheels.
Looking ahead
you see
only the memory
of the single marbled eye --
your embalmed moon
hovering overhead
howling,
as the train
smokes into the night.
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Feet of Clay
Her ribs are washboard ridges, but she is not hungry
her body is tired, but she cannot rest.
This numbing love lulls her to hypnotic place --
except to swallow these burning coals,
and tuck her teeth into the creases of a hand,
she had no needs.
The recesses of her eyes, hide her desires
she stuffs her mouth with skin, and
searches for desire, beyond the border
of the ordinary. Loving this one is different.
She loves so hard her soul's spine splits like a tree
beneath the lumberjack's ax.
She sees heaven in the sad
spaces behind those retreating eyes.
Love's hunger will not be satisfied.
She does not know philosophy, but she prays to feel
love - fruit out of dirt. She drops into sleep, breathing
the silent air of absence.
The cleaver of abandonment,
drives her to the river,
rushing and freezing, it moves her
closer to the buzz-blade of desire.
She pretends this passion is in disguise, only
a intricate mask carved from wood --
that shall one night reveal
the shining flesh beneath.
Her maker pulls away,
and the silver-plated stare
is blind to her.
Rods and columns of only hard darkness,
still, she thinks this heart holds
the rhythm of the living.
Shadows pace the floor
when this one leaves the room,
as her sparkling heart jewelry
slowly falls away. Still,
she will return to this room, if only to kiss
the sawdust, where the those beloved
clay feet have passed.
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Awaken
Seek the rapture of life --
not the thoughts
or the words,
but the transcendent myth.
Move into the darkness
where eternity wakes
understand --
the polarities
of this and that
in the field of time
are not
what we are.
Live in the realization
of the central,
knowing,
good and evil
are a fiction of duality.
Seek the center --
sublimate the desire
to sublimate the desire.
Choose not between,
but exist within
the light that is in
you.
Open to the transcendent --
the vast ground of silence
be still
be the breath of wind
be a poem
be a visiting deity
see that you are God.
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Bonsai
Within in His watercourse
soothed by the Master's
water source
and watchful words
she grows,
restrained and blind --
a conundrum of freedom
a beauteous bonsai
contained in the gentle bind
of a Master's willful mind.
Willingness, the only wind which
will bend her gnarled trunk
away from the
of life-stream of
cognizant thought.
Trust, the supple tree --
mind out of mind
brought to fruit
by the penetrating rain
which He restrains
or renders,
at His mindful whims
to her roots.
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I am like a stone that lives.
Anne Sexton
Therapy
On a watery couch
pills fall from her eyes
lacking contentment
or a mother,
she's not sure
stingy hearted
by what she denies
herself.
A winter roof
covered in snow
a painful sight
shining in moonlight
it makes her so
sad
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Toward Joy
Move away, gently
from prejudice
that tangled place,
where a single thorn
belies the beauty
of the bud.
Move toward that
place of peace,
where life is a song, trilled
within the throat
of a diminutive songbird.
Slide into the indigo of night
where life is a poem
written on the wind, held beneath
the wing of a single sparrow.
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Amber Nights
I wait for you, an insect
trapped in amber, while
sticky sap slowly fills my veins,
and my arteries turn to stone. Here
alone, in my golden globe, I exsist,
an emotion suspended in time,
hopeful only for your hands
to stir the substance of my bones
and free my twisted limbs.
The wheels of my being turn
slowly, with great grinding breaths,
and stabbing pains
which border on truth. As
my heart grows weak
at the dark brink of life,
I am captive, entangled
in the machinations
of your resinous reasons,
and other obligations.
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The Sound of Your Breathing
I beckon
to my heartbeat,
my dreams,
my bed
to echo against
my rocks
to fill the cracks
in my earth
Complete
the legend I hold
of you, holding me,
hard, against the cliffs
shielding my nakedness
from the breaking waves
protecting me
from Prometheus'
merciless birds
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Stay the Rain
Stay, quiet rain
sing me your calm song
slide down the sides
of my scorched life
cleanse me of my dusty
burdens of proof
shimmer smooth
my green stems
nourish my roots
spread my leaves,
so when the sun comes
I will be wide, wet and ready
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Bio
I am
a bright flaxen dandelion
pushing toward an azure sky
through a crack in the black tarmac
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