~My child
What will you take up in your hands
and see as good
Will you see the falseness of sold things
meant as a siren song
and worry little over small matters
that fall away with yesterday
May you be nimble in your seeking
of love and of God,
and know that the two are one.~
Until then
When I begin to speak
a learned language
to a veiled world,
please know that I have always loved you-
my hand-holder,
my chaperone.
In shadow
At bedtime,
those dark blooms in her room.
In coffee mornings, the dregs of her cup.
At lunch, in her rusted car,
the depths of her purse.
The tunnel vision of her darkened spirit.
The hurried look of a long-time user.
And, on this day,
the hand-like shadow on the x-ray plate.
***
Getting used to it
In a moldering dream,
I fitted a woolen sock
over the stump of my leg.
The two middle fingers of each hand
were missing,
the knuckles paper-skinned.
A presence studied my learned motions
and nodded its approval.
~Now you will stay~
~Now you have learned~
***
image credit: https://pixabay.com/users/mysticsartdesign-322497/
Asleep in sway
Refuse in the oceans.
God’s things caught in its mire.
In a come-lately penance,
I think of small atonements,
futile fixes.
If a poem had power, had sway,
or could be born of a prophet,
sleep might come more easily.
Still, I count the sheep of days,
the fish in a river’s flow…
***
image: https://pixabay.com/users/a_different_perspective-2135817/
Out of control
They come to hurt,
at inopportune times:
finned and fishy notions,
marauding like sharks in teapot oceans.
I’ve a head full of dark, as I drive.
Under a rainy tree, a young woman.
Her eyes, they follow.
On quantum strings, they remonstrate-
~Be kind. Be kind~
Artist:Ivan Aivazovsky
Serendipitous
As if the deck had been shuffled
by some calculating clown,
we were thrown together.
More than once. More than thrice.
Our two wrongs.
But, oh!
You made me blush
with your side-eyes and staccato smiles.
Guilty am I of grievous commissions in a secret heart.
***
In thrall
Dreamt figments
pushing the day’s white envelope;
conducting a march of left-footed circles.
I am no Joker,
I do not think.
Glitterati
The immediate-
awash with musts and can’ts.
The distance glitters.
Seconds
~The night man.
When it’s time,
he has packages for me.
Seven a week.
No time off for good behavior.
They always fascinate,
though I must buy them
with pieces that have been dear to me.
In his thrall,
I awake each day
a little closer
to childhood.~
Aremyfeetofftheground 