poetry – Page 40 – Aremyfeetofftheground

The left handed Artist

the happenstance of noises
is interpreted as voices
they are baleful, malevolent, or wise
fraught with contradiction
but uttered with conviction
as senseless as senility’s surmise

within this pool of sadness
and the fear of creeping madness
(a blackened bloom that’s coming to the fore)
the consciousness is running
from the feral beast so cunning
while trying to lock the fifth and final door

and there! it’s done so proudly
and the door’s been slammed so loudly
and the voices and the visions are deterred
now, it’s time for more creations
for poetic innovations
but the inspiration utters not a word

so The Artist sits and wonders
what sort of mindless blunders
he has made, and why his symphonies are gone
now, perhaps it was the madness
and the overwhelming sadness
that once had given rarity of song.

The answer

On an errand from my town to another
(a lazy man’s errand- don’t you dare schedule me anymore)
I pass by the old weathered sign “Trail Entrance”.
It’s a blue arrow, meant to point north, to the left,
but now decrepit and flaccid in its old age.
Doing a face plant into the dirt,
telling us all to go to hell.
It’s been ten years, maybe longer,
since i took pride in making that steep ascent,
fording streams on stepping stones,
marching up muddy slopes,
finally reaching my destination:
a balding summit called Teapot hill.
It commanded a beautiful view of the countryside, and,
immersed in its quietness, on just the right day,
I could watch the cloud shadows roll across green fields,
gobbling the golden sun.
In the late summer, when these dark ships passed over me on the summit,
I felt a slight chill,
as little vortices of whirlwind seemed to spring up from the earth around me,
dispersing bugs and scattering the ashes of old campfires.
Tempests on the Teapot.
After a time, those black windblown spaceships would disperse,
giving way to green radiance once again.
A one act play that I would give anything to call up at will.

Today is such a day, and I know it, even from the pavement well away.
God, can I make it? (I think)
I surely would like that feeling once again.
That feeling of being soothed, of being comforted, of being spoken to
without words.
Of owning my place in this, a green jewel of the universe.
I stop, and reverse back down the gravel shoulder. Lock up and go, you fool.
It’s mid September. The rains have not been kind this summer,
and so the steep sections of the trail are not so muddy.
And, another kindness- someone has built rudimentary bridges across the streams.
Even with these blessings, I have only half the wind, and take twice the time.
I look nervously at my phone. Plenty of battery, but no signal.
On my own, I stop three times, and then reach the flat top.
Someone has carved an old stump into the form of an armchair, and I sit,
catching breath, head bowed.
There’s a sign, crudely carved.
You Are Here
You Are Here
Welcome Home.

Growing into it

I saw you many days when I was but a child.
You were in fine leaf then.

We lassoed you twice and made a swing.
When days were happy, we swung
among your slanted sunbeams and jumped off, sailing,
into your baby’s breath cushions,
just in time for the dinner bell.

When days were unhappy,
we knew, and stuffed our pockets with stolen sandwiches,
in hopes that they wouldn’t come for us
until the fights were over.
We had our bug jars,
and caught fireflies to light our way home.

In time, I got a little sorry.
Father gone, mother so sick, brother needing a wing to enfold him.
I tried to do what was expected, to be called a man.
Odd jobs, gone all day.
Having to talk to the grown ups about plans.

Sporadic were the times we saw you then.
Your weathered tethers had snapped.
The cracked wooden seat hung crazily in the warm breeze,
drawing childish patterns in the sandy track we had worn.
I took a picture, and left you for a man’s age.

I write this now with a bowed head, for I am old.
There’s a happy young family now, on this lane.
They’ve shyly let me wander their back path.

You’re not the worse for wear, you know.
The grooves we once cut into your arterial limb
are now sporting new stout ropes, with a big black tire.
The sand pictures gone, with time’s etch-a-sketch.

You’ve seen all the weathers of the world,
and I wonder how many children you have made happy.
You seem to stand and study,
and, I wager, you have many long names
for this vector in space and time.

And so, I have grown into it.
Whatever it is.
But I think you will still dream your long names
until the world encroaches at last
and you must go
the way that I am going.

***

Art by https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geofhickey-artist.com%2Fnew-work-in-progress%2F&psig=AOvVaw1T2qqGnacbKvQtntjmkrPL&ust=1622571352644000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=2ahUKEwiK9YW6w_TwAhXRBc0KHR54Cq8Qr4kDegQIARAj

Wonder World

The saddler’s leather
The vane of a feather
The needles that come from a pine
Electrical static
And the smoke aromatic
And the shivery feel up your spine
Hot summer hazes
The Moon, in its phases
The whoosh in revolving of doors
Cheeses so smelly
Hot food in your belly
And the sauna’s white steam in your pores
A pussycat’s tongue
An aria sung
The shadows that blot out the stars
The drizzle that’s staining
The snow, when it’s raining
And the sound of flamenco guitars
Bumblebees lazy
On summer days hazy
The waves from the pavement, of heat
The hummingbirds hover
We cannot discover
The speed of their wings, as they beat
The things in the Sea
Like the wild Manatee
And the squid with its fluids of ink
And the dolphins a-playing
And the predators preying
And the jellyfish, purple or pink
The eagles espying
The rabbit they’re eyeing
The spider that’s spinning its web
The spring ice that’s melting
The hailstorm that’s pelting
And the tides of the flow and the ebb
So, all is connected
And shan’t be corrected
”Tis part of the master design
And all things imagined
Belong to this pageant
That’s wrought by the Artist Divine.

number fifteen

A green caterpillar, stripy, with soft padded sticky feet.
It twirls and caresses the finger, then drops thirty storeys.
A shattered shard of mirror, six inches from point to base.
Tempted am I to challenge its edge.
A fish net, made of basket-woven reeds, with a long greasy handle.
It holds water too long. Stupid. Where is fish?
(a slimy smile, coin-eyed, with tendrils, hovers just below the ripples)
A tiny tiny nematode, directionless, inchworming under my microscoptic eyes.
How many have I, down, down in the warm bottom of the bowel?
Children of the tape worm.

All of these have come to me
in the wild eyed apprehension of semiconscious sleep.
The sweetest of dreams to thee.

Pierce my heart with cast iron arrows

Fifty years on,
in my sad unpacking,
this time of letting go,
I find,
pressed between panes,
a polaroid.
A face is fuzzily framed
in one angled corner, and
I think it’s you.
A blur of bouncy ponytail,
laughing eyes and bunny teeth.
Looking up,
waving goodbye
to balloons released,
bound for a section of cloud
on some other tangent.
Nothing between but blue.

Was it the day
we went downslope
into the forbidden ravine,
inventing a tent out of bedrolls and branches?
Jelly sandwiches.
Red rolls of caps for fun.
The contraband camera,
the stolen tarot deck and decoder book.

My life.
My love.
There was no other.

How will I find that cloud tangent now?

The Seventh stairway

Furtive and troubling, the rustling of things,
Imagined, perhaps, in the dark.
And close now, the flapping of leathery wings,
And the hounds are beginning to bark.

Some thing keeps them at bay, at least for the while,
As I gather my breath near the top
Of the seventh of stairways, to the narrowest aisle.
I dare not consider to stop.

I know not the agent that’s let me go free
From the poisonous pits down below.
Perhaps entertainment, for somebody’s glee-
Is the hope I’m beginning to know.

There was a faint glow on the steps further up,
But now it is bleeding away.
The guttural growls are without interrupt,
And the bats are denying the day.

How much life I have left in these limbs to go on
Is in doubt, as I climb once again.
To such dizzying heights, trying to make it to dawn,
And the Order of everyday men.

With a desperate run up the last of the stairs,
There’s a light I see glowing once more.
Through a portal there’s flowing the sweetest of airs,
But a Presence is guarding the door.

Its radiant blackness, its absence of eyes,
Its telepathy shrivels the spirit.
Its figure of nearly impossible size
Says that doom is upon those who near it.

“Ah, me!” did I cry, to a nebulous Savior
That I always had held in such doubt.
My faithlessness; all of my wretched behavior,
Had brought this misfortune about.

Wake me up! Wake me up! Let me out!

Image credit to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/arthakker/8720100528

A dream of northern climes

Twenty years have gone by, such a passage of time,
Since I dreamed the most singular thing.
You and I, we were natives of a far northern clime,
And we traveled from winter to spring

Our huts we would build out of snow as we went,
And we’d live off the fish and the seal.
When the weather’d relent, we would set up our tent,
And we’d both have a bountiful meal.

Secure in each other is what we had felt:
Two adventuresome souls on the trail.
But I would not wait for the spring ice to melt.
I’d a place I must be without fail.

You knew this was coming, and I would but go,
Still you stayed with me all of the way.
We picked up supplies at the local depot,
And we pulled them back home on the sleigh

A good sturdy team of some strong husky dogs,
With a sled they could pull all the day.
And I needed them all for the hard lonely slogs
I would face, many days, up that way.

Yukon gold, I was after, and swore I’d be there,
Before anyone staked their own claims.
Already I’m missing your presence so fair
And must go while the time still remains.

So we stand at our parting, in the twilight deep blue,
With the heavens’ great dome overhead.
The snow is so sparkling, with this beautiful hue;
I must go many miles before bed.

There’s no need for our tears, or our unspoken fears,
As I hitch up the dogs to the sleigh.
I whistle a tune, it comes back to our ears,
As if spread by the starlit array

I did not look back, as I put on my pack,
And departed this heartbreaking scene.
I saw not your face, but remembered your grace,
And your wonderful soul, so serene.

Photo credit to: https://www.magneticnorthtravel.com/blog/details/the-arctic-and-the-polar-night

Marshmallow Moon

Me and my dear daughter
Are a-goin’ to the moon
She’s pilot of our spaceship
And we’ve gotta get there soon

We’re bringin’ back some samples
Of rocks an’ dymond jools
We know somebody up there
We’ve never been no fools

She fires up the thrusters
Her job, it is to land
I’m suited up and ready
To go at her command

The ‘Puter says we’re landed
Though our ship, it seems to bounce
So tipsy and unsteady
Like it didn’t weigh an ounce

We finally seem to settle
The ladder, down I climb
With shovel and a pick axe
I hope we’re here in time

Our man we knew had told us
The “Window” was so shallow
But late we were, and so the moon
Had turned into marshmallow

Say not goodnight

how has it come to this pass
has it all been for love unrequited
or that yours has never been seen
all that you have reached for
all the rare moments of joy
every dream, hope, yearning
dashed
your vessel is frail, dry, and hollow

say not goodnight yet
close not the door
gentle one
there is no solace in darkness
there is at least one who loves you
do not fear
dear one
lay your head to rest
upon the downy pillow of expectation
and let your spirit be soothed
by the hand upon your brow
and the other, holding yours.