Wingbeats drum my thin window
The moth is frantic for the feeble light
Powder prints on the glass
shown out as mica glitter
And i am reminded of bird hits
and premature burials
These things, innocent and pure,
do not have duplicity.
Only nature.
My desklamp, a false guide.
My window, invisible.
These i must remedy.
Category Archives: free verse
In flight
Soul-spoken spirit,
unbound, in flight.
Pineal eye gets a look.
Events celestial.
Of a hair’s breadth am I,
in this filament.
Then,
a promise warms me
like an innocent’s blush.
And now
this mote
understands.
the cane mutiny
As we sat
in stuffy waiting,
you came by,
lady with the cane.
Regal in your latter years.
And I had a flash dream, unreasoning.
You in white apron and slippers,
sounding your steps on creaky pine.
Your support- a bannister with loose pickets.
And you did not rely on it, did you?
Afterword
Will you tell me, Father,
what the sky looked like
when the Angels fell?
When one of power
sowed the great discord.
The First Lie.
Kin against kin.
Weapons in Elysium.
Did the black flock
blot the Sun
and foul the Earth?
And did She banish them
forever to the Nether?
Old chum
There’s a feller
comes to my windy
some nights.
He tall
He skinny bones
He grey like
He looks right in
with a big face
First few times
i real scared
i cry and run to my elders
they say dreams dreams
go to bed
i say no come come i show you
and he gone
they make fun
and say tell no more lies
and so last night i see the big face again
and it sort of smile
blinking black eyes
and now i don’t run
he look up then down
up then down on the windy frame
but i cant open
new paint dried oh yesterday
then he put long wormy fingers on the glass
and push up up open
he take my hand in pyjamas
and i smell him
like spearmint gum
and i not afraid no more
he take me far far away
we sail
and i see things not one of you will ever know.
just my old chum.
***
Art by Jaroslav Panuska, via Google
Defilement
How vile,
how foul you are
to wreck this green peace
with a donkey’s bray
The sweet sigh of breeze
shattered and mocked
as you contest for the noblest obscenities
and the basest of sentiments
Yes, you, the loudest of voices
makes me all the more quiet
Waiting
And so. Just so.
Lines of vines
cling to string.
A swooping tree
dangles hard round fruit,
so green.
Rhubarb, tended,
raises its flower flags.
All this, in the brash and beautiful
life of July.
In a late afternoon cruise
I come, by chance,
to the scene of a sad and early death.
Bouquets by the roadside.
A styrofoam cross.
Tattooed tire marks, black on grey.
Fresh and smooth asphalt
covers that which was melted away.
The stains of her blazing death can’t be scrubbed.
In the small silence of an out of place town
I slow, scolded by the flashing speed sign.
Things cry out for paint.
A little care is all they ask.
A pair of toddlers pursue one another,
tan knees all scabbed.
Will they see a good life,
or seep into this stolid realm
of used-to-be.
A living thing
Why don’t you see me?
Acknowledge me at least.
I am a living thing, and you know me.
I’m sure of it.
God, it’s been forty years since High School.
You were the nerd before that word was coined.
Top of the class those four years,
but without the Jock thing.
Most of them shunned you.
“Hey Number One!” they jeered,
laughing as you passed in the hallway.
The other girls avoided you,
wanting to stay in the boat and not rock it.
But me?
I became a pariah when they saw my slow approach.
I wanted to be like you,
to have the quiet courage to be myself,
even though it hurt.
I talked to you at the lockers,
sat near you in class,
liked you for your blushing hesitation
as you gave the right answer that no one else knew
or had the guts to speak out loud.
Was it wrong when I warmed to you?
You had cultivated aloneness for so long
that you didn’t know how to deal with affection,
and so you treated me with studied indifference.
When grad came and dispersed us into the world’s ways,
I hurt, and called you bastard in my sorry mind.
How dumb can you be, I thought. Can’t you see?
With forgiveness and forced forgetfulness,
I went away to my future.
Cast myself into the career of a workaholic.
Met many nice people.
Kept cats and took pills.
In the decades, Karma contrived a crisscross of our paths.
Brief, crowded, and uncomfortable meetings.
I saw that you were with someone and then, at another time,
someone different.
No rings. No commitment.
It was last night that made me write this.
Turns out you were a friend of one of the bandmembers.
I had come with a girlfriend who was married to another of them.
Fifty of us in the room. Too loud music.
Some dullard was attempting to engage me in conversation
when I spotted you.
Alone with a drink. Watching the game.
We are sixty now, god dammit!
I see quick regret in your eyes, but no promise.
Am I too bohemian for you now?
You liked freckles once.
I’ve got a million of ’em.
Why the hell am I still kicking myself over you?
Because my self-made fantasy won’t be denied.
I see you as looking out over a dream sea,
each of its atoms an unnamed star in the slow swirl of Universe.
But, one last time, it’s our stubborn pride, I think, that keeps us apart,
as if we were strong magnets facing the wrong way, poles pushing.
And I’m thinking of just going home now, to my cats and my pills.
It’s a “living” thing.
But, hell, I want to sail with you on that dream sea.
I am coming to stand by you tonight. Right here, right now.
Say something, or say nothing.
Maybe, with your carpentry of kindness, we can build that boat.
Aremyfeetofftheground 