Solstice

When horizon billows ashen,
The daystar becomes recluse,
And as daylight is in ration,
December frost will seduce,
The entire hemisphere.

As the evening shades expand,
The soul pines the missing light,
With every falling grain of sand,
Knees and spines curve contrite,
Pray cool atmosphere.

Once god Saturn was beseeched,
In gifts, candles, songs, and fete,
Virtues of this god were preached,
In slim hope that he could abate,
The climate austere.

As lord Mithras ‘ere remembered,
As this Persian unconquered sun,
His light-filled reign was assured,
At midwinter to have but begun,
Igniting luminous sphere.

Jews received the gift of oil,
The lamps burning eight days long,
Brothers — Seleucid plans did foil,
To a Holy temple, the faithful throng,
In never-ending cheer.

Into this darkness a light has shone,
Word to rekindle that which is fair,
Into the darkness births a new dawn,
Yet devils shadow o’er each prayer,
But in all, Love will adhere,

Evermore.

Christmas in Hell

Walking through the snowy city,
Neon and flash muffle the stars,
A pace madly void of pity,
A world of carbon coughing cars.

Peace on earth in holiday mode,
With endless sales to void the soul,
Merciless will the voices goad,
To part every one from their dole.

All blinded by sparkles and bling,
Deafened by such vacuous calls,
Foot before foot, n’er hear the bells ring,
Steeples and churches dwarfed by malls.

Once the meaning was so splendid,
Now a time for rich and for poor,
To part, the least unattended,
A sign faith has failed to endure.

Beleaguered, the first holy night,
An occupied land, a common birth,
Common family in uncommon plight,
Newborn with beasts, next to the earth.

The voices were those of shepherds,
Angelically were moved to find,
Streaming from hick town’s backwaters,
The lowly behold the greatest signs.

Today, the Christ child lingers,
Far from knickknack cherubs and elves,
And the hype and sale of anglers,
Nearer ones who humble themselves.

Streetwalkers, embezzlers, users,
Bankers who’ve lost every wager,
Room for abused and abusers,
Forlorn find Christ is no stranger.

Wherever be there hell on earth,
The Christ strays far from the mirth.

Afghanistan, Algeria,
Angola, Burma, Canada
China, Colombia, Congo, GAZA
Georgia, India, Indonesia,
Iraq, Israel, Ivory Coast,
Korea, Laos, Lebanon,
Moldova, Namibia, Nepal,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine,
Peru, Philippines, Russia,
Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka,
Sudan, Thailand, Turkey,
Uganda, United States,
Uzbekistan, Yemen. (1)

When Christmas is hell, hope is in dearth,
The heart's cry should be for peace on earth.

(1) Some of the places at war or where war has been fought now, and relatively recently.

Endless Earth

When the bird is too pained to fly,
A sparrow falls from the sky,
And broken breath, and broken wing,
And beak to weary ‘ere to sing.

Now a nest of sod and grass,
Until last breath has come to pass,
Cradled, swaddled in the clay,
The bird’s life sets, as does the day.

As once woven within a shell,
Until sparrow escaped that cell,
Now be unwoven into the sod,
As if by the very hand of God.

And as flesh and feather fester,
Hungry humus now fed by weather,
Strips sparrow of flesh, then bone,
Until this pixie’s ghost is gone.

And yet the song remains alive,
In myriad sparrow song that thrive,
For there is a Spirit, there is a child,
Delighting in every place that’s wild.

Humming

Limbs of hollow bone extend,
Contract and then extend again,
A fibrous feast of hues ablaze
As fire, as spectral wings amaze.

As plumage hues in ghostly seep,
The quill-combed breeze does weep.
A quiet fairy, nor here, nor there,
Part angelic, part feathery flare.

All the while, with long stoic beak
Peculiar proboscis nectar seeks.
Then poised as if hung on wisps of air,
Glides in curvatures, so angel fair.

There is this gaze of timeless awe,
There is this moment without a flaw,
A bend in space, the flutter stills,
The humming quiets the morning chills.

Kinder

When the heart cracks,
And love of self is lost,
The bird's song lacks,
Nothing and nothing costs,
Less and heals more,
Little we.

When beloved ones break,
And the light is so bitter,
The mind does awake,
To rain's pitter patter,
Awash in our soul,
Little we.

Where there is no light,
Acrid burns as we breathe,
Pollen spreads such a sight,
As we find ourselves relieved,
For no reason,
Little we.

Old World Dies

Metal monsters consume with hellish maw.
Spirit man adorned in primeval magic,
He fears the silence of hums and caws,
Friend of sprites, their end be tragic.
Old world dies.

Running deeper into the ancient timbers,
Where the sanctuary from the techno-beasts?
Primevals disappear — nor cry, nor whisper,
Is heard as the gluttonous grow fat at feasts.
Old world dies.

Cold the shiver as the magical recoil,
Gone the flora, the fauna and the shades,
So mines and bovines can steal their soil,
Spirit man breathes and leaves the glades.
Old world dies.

Old soil smells overpowered in onslaught,
Pesticides, fertilizers, and ozone eaters,
Spirit folk genocide unheralded, unfought,
As naiads, nymphs — so much compost fillers.
Old world's died.

Cracks

Morning thaws nocturnal chill,
Infusing eyes and limbs with will,
To live, to breathe, to move, to heal,
To wonder if what we sense is real.

Of colors, taciturn or floral bursts,
Beckon a glimpse as if to thirst,
For minds and eyes and selves to brood:
What be this place, so richly hued?

Why do light and corneas contrive,
An endless feast before our eyes,
And sugar, starch, proteins, reveal,
Mad dance of tastes at every meal.

Whilst pain of body and pain of soul,
This endless longing to be more whole,
Why not go quietly into the night?
Why this ache that our years be slight?

And every time we face the test,
Another beloved we lay to rest,
We hate the darkened journey hence,
And cry for more-more recompense.

The evening colors bleed reds to grays,
An ache for love rises through the haze,
To live, to breathe, to move, to heal,
And wonder we at all that we feel,

Seeping through the cracks.

Ténèbres

Shadows bleed like paint on glass,
Cumulus chokes remnant spectrum,
Fading light, the evening's mass,
Choir a liturgy of insect hum.
Ténèbres.

Hills and mounds — emerging molars,
Rise and meet a sagging horizon,
Creatures cower as abandoned soldiers,
As Hades feverishly emblazons.
Ténèbres.

Primeval dark hushes creation,
As if never had there been a breath,
Body and soul's numinous elation,
As darkness presses and feels like death.
Ténèbres.

And a mist and morning's light of God,
And rekindled in the rays of One so near,
And the dew anoints the trembling sod,
And stirs all we infants from our fear.
Lumière.

Collapse

Maddened bird within its cage,
Nips and caws at every shade,
Lovely plumage adorns a rage,
Burning burning, never staid.

Iron bars of neural paths,
A pain, a stain, a vile craft,
Spiteful sacrament ever baths,
Castaway on her lonesome raft.

Prayers spill from feeble lips,
And feeble legs drop and sit,
Like ever drifting ghostly ships,
A cold wax digit, never lit.

A lovely dream to horizon sails,
Flesh in hard and hardened hell,
Cold wolf cry that mourns and wails,
Glass eyes pallid, and never tell,

Of the collapse.

Daddy

Fragile frame cradles this gentle one,
A knowing smile releases, then rests,
A long pilgrimage of love and pardon,
Faith and hope facing the strongest test.
I want to be...

Fragile mind savors love and learning,
And love that learned to love in all,
Eyes of grief, scalp grey from yearning,
That all his own answer love's call.
I want to be...

Fragile soul, curbed spine and knees,
In a friendship that none can fathom,
Mind's eye fastened on what no one sees,
Content prayer brushing the garment's hem.
I want to be...

Fragile frame cradles this gentle one,
Beloved Papa to kin and the kin in God,
Though wobbly and weakened, he's only begun,
The life, the story, the epic, the ballad.
I want to be...
More like he.

Second Born

Folding in the lips and face,
A crumpled vision of divine grace,
First-air cry of fear and rage,
The moment forever set the stage,
You play upon.

Strong in will, tender in heart,
A teasing sprite from the very start,
An inner drive to test the love,
And know who you are a part of.
You play among.

Your words now flow, a joyful stream,
That pass through our protective seems,
Your every joy, your every sorrow,
Cuts us quick to the very marrow.
You play with us.

The pain you suffer in saving face,
Will be for you — a lifelong waste,
For when your smile infects your pride,
And your very soul opens up wide,
We play together.

A strong wolf cub you remain,
Fierce and loyal are your refrain,
Ever wanting to be fully grown,
We ever hoping the seeds are sown,
To play forever,
With you.

Bleed

World bleeds mystery
Aesthetic jabs soul
Azure sea, scarlet sky,
Eye holes behold
A spec of life.

Vapors embrace, conceal
Substrate presence in all
Spirit breathes the real
Clawing love in a free fall
Taste absence.

Void within reflects horizon,
Hollow prayers, raised fists —
Be the sacrament in this prison,
Be the embrace in the cool mist.
Enigmatic epiphany.

In broken heart, the self will bleed,
Paining cry in groans and whimpers,
Why does love not run to feed,
But breathes lullabies in whispers?
In the dark places.

World bleeds mystery,
Selves amazed and dazed,
Bow in a numinous gravity,
Pulled down yet to be raised
Reborn in mystery.

___
This is now my fist attempt to rework this old poem. It's a bit better...might take another stab at it again. Not near as strong as "Leaf"...my favorite recent poem...but what the hey. I wrote this about 10 years ago...never liked it originally, but thought it could be salvaged. Here is the revision.

Cheers.

-Michael

This is Love

Love, pain, and sorrow
Many fibers criss and cross
As the past taints tomorrow
Life is a weaving of such loss.

Though the shoot is fragile
And the wick smolders
I will walk the extra mile
Loving, though life is colder.

In woe, new hope enlivens
In the dark – a new light shine.
As life unfolds — love awakens
To the only one I call mine.

Many waters, many deaths
Cannot quench the burning flame
From the vows to my last breath
It will endure the pain and shame.

This is love,

My Rose...
____

About 4-5 years old

Faith, Hope, Love

Cocooned in a chrysalis of pain,
White gown bears a bloody stain,
The flower given for us to care
Petals wither, remain threadbare.

Bask in bitterness,
Numb in business.

Cocooned is but apparent death,
Life sustained from blood and breath,
The flower dies but a bulb remains,
Called forth again with sun and rain.

Closed to the healing,
Deaf to the calling.

One day, chrysalis will crack,
Emerging beauty from fragile sack.
Wounds inflicted from closest kin,
Now fissures where love seeps within.

Love's strange path,
The kiss of death and wrath.

Chrysalis crucifix unfurl the wings,
Beautiful One: sing, sing sing,
Till wounded hearts mend and forget,
To hate as a new dawn does beget,

Sweet, sweet balm,
From open, pierced palm.

World without end.

____

Another refitted poem...I'll have to think if it works any better than the original.

Easter Thoughts

May the Christ
...be raised anew
...in you
Though the darkness closes in,
and the chill clutches your dreams

May the Christ...
...be born again
...in us
Though the world is lost to sin,
and love is lost amid the screams

May the Christ...
...storm the gates
...in all
Though the wall grows dark and thick,
and blood pours like milk and honey

May the Christ...
...part the clouds
...in glory
Though world's soul is pale and sick
and reeks of the cult of money

May the Christ...
...touch your eyes
...in a baptism.
Love stronger than the grave,
Dance us all beyond the cave,
Into a light, into a love,
Evermore.

Fracture

Same stuff as the stars
Yet blowing like dust,
Fractured into shards,
Blown by every gust,
Forgotten.

Enfleshed God Breath,
Breathing in poisons,
Exhaling cold death,
Void of word or chanson,
Unsung.

Mind culled from matter
Content to lay in mire,
Fragile it will shatter,
Never to reach the spire.
Waste.

Threadbare souls resting,
Flesh dried and crimson,
Dry bones are nesting,
'Til a day will hasten,
Awakening.

___

This rewrite is better...by far than the original...I need to let it sit to see if I like it enough to keep it or if I need to rework it some more.

THE HUMAN SIGH

And the fountain has run dry
Too distant is the sky.
Weep in sackcloth and ashes
Bend your neck to forty lashes
Knowing none can hear you cry.

And the well is filled with dust
The heart is clogged with rust.
Blood in veins flows no more
And the soul is parched and sore
And none to watch you die.

And God's plenteous horn
Lost to eyes gouged and torn.
We drink of the poisoned source
And wonder, not feeling remorse.

In our graves we long to lie
Knowing how empty is...
...the human sigh.

Forgive

Numbed-Cataract Soul
Swaddled closeted and cold
Merciless, self pitied and old
Lifeless as dusty coal.

Tearless, joyless, cancered shell
Pain neither enters nor exits hell
Parched thirst that none will quell
Bloated small within a cell.

Hoarding pain as if a jewel
Bitter root the only fuel
A mask of wisdom plays the fool
Lie of safety so icy cruel.

Cease burning breath -- inhale
New air billowing beyond the vale
Lungs once coal now pink and pale
First step foal, so weak and frail

Life in death and death in life
A hope that stirs beyond all strife
Blood and bread in joy and grief
A penitent hope, a strong belief

Forgive

Groans

Mangled mantle begs stability
Cracked crust magma weeps
Hellish hoard scortch-scultps vitality
Gushing gasses moulding lava seeps.

Whipped winds violent as jealous lover
Blind bluster of circling rage
Crazed creatures all scurry for cover
Howling harpy storms from its cage.

Patient pacing stalking predator,
Rapacious reaper ever gains,
Mortal morcels angst does stir,
Stiffened and slacking in their pains.

Graceless grave swallows, consumes
Failing flesh and bleaching bones,
Salvific story engulfs dust, and blooms
Reborn-reformed hear the reaper's groans.
____

2 years old.

Love Dusk

Drunk and senseless to your kiss
Eyes accepting, loving, choosing
Days of sweetness
Nights of light
I your mister and you my miss
Finding my true soul in loosing
Me in you,
You in me.

Who turned the tide of love
Into a never ending ebb
Days of sorrow
Nights of woe
Pain so continuous, never enough
Of the searing-numbing stab
You to me
Me to you.

Home of withered cracling strings
Engtagle without warmth or embrace
Days of bitter
Nights of shade
Who butchered these angel wings
Clawed to shreds love's cherub face
Me and you
You and me.

Has death already done its part?
Can the grave further seperate souls?
Days of shadow
Nightly nightmares
No mending for the broken heart
No cooling the fiery coals
Of me to you
Of you to me.

Love dusk...
_____

About 1 year ago.

WHOLLY BROKEN

Hormones, soul-mates, aloneness,
Fate, providence, or foolishness,
Naive dreamers, blinded by bliss,
Sprinting headlong toward happiness.

'Twas I
Too small
Too blind
To heal my beloved.

Not death, nor divorce, yet parted.
Living the life of the broken-hearted.
Joy's ended before it really started,
Only have so much love alloted.

'Twas I
Too faithless,
Too closed,
To heal my beloved.

Deep grooves of familiar contempt,
A rose garden sorely unkempt,
Bedfellows that do not tempt,
Towards embrace--no attempt.

'Twas I
Too enclosed,
Too hardened
To love my beloved.
___

A couple of years ago...again.

BLITHELY

Despair
Like coal dust in the air
Breathed in and poisoning
Blank stare,
Tis all the spark between the pair
Two love starved souls sickening

White lies,
Like angelic statues in a park
Now feces and feathers encrusting
Heart cries,
So moanfull, mournefull, and stark
Ice where once was warmth and trusting.

Painless
Like a beast dumb before it's death
Eyes tight to an inevitable fate,
Mindless,
Passively exhaling soul and breath,
Numbness much colder than hate.

Gone,
Sweetest touch of my lover's love
Endless drought bleeds her dry,
Done,
Prayers then fist were raised above
I watched love and faith wither and die,

Blithely...
____

A couple of years ago as well.

Of Age

Freckled grin in Mother's embrace
God and gravy, the world is safe,
To every bump - a loving face,
A joyous life of uncommon grace.

Embryonic walls of peace sublime
Fractured by an ancient crime,
Soul awakes--another clock's chime
Welcomes to prison of every time.

In free-fall grasping, gasping air
Pained wakening to the nightmare
Reprieve in loving bloodied stare
Of one life that holds all that's fair.

Broken bodied--bloodied soul, save,
From the gapping mouthy hungry grave!
Healing through lashes of the slave,
Beams light,and life, to the dismal cave.

___

Also from a couple of years ago.

Sickness

The Sickness' full of painful stings,
Beloved thrashes at my words
Broken crumpled flightless wings
Hobbling dying frightened birds
Be we.

Long ago, love and life did crest
Now flesh and soul cannot feel
Now in demon darkness, pressed
Courage, joy, have lost their steel
Bedeviled.

Beyond salvation, beyond the cup
Of pardon, redemption, and renewal
Alone and dying, I wait to sup
In the hell of my own construal
Be me.
___

From a couple of years ago.

Ailes

Turn your face into the wind,
Do not bow to your chagrin,
For dark specters haunt your step,
To steal the dreams that you have kept,
Soar.

A lovely soul amid the scars,
In days of ruin and days of wars,
Not a victim of these times,
Stepping strong through hard climbs,
Breathe.

Midwife, mystic, artist, friend,
Beloved by many to whom you tend,
A smile, a presence, a solace word,
Often spoken, now to be heard,
Listen.

The candle burns upon the sill,
The Spirit breathes - peace be still,
All that is loved is never lost,
And specters fear whom they accost,
Rise.

Turn your face into the wind,
Do not bow to your chagrin,
For tears nurse a lovely soul,
Stories will yet fill up your scroll,
Live.
_____

For a friend, recovering from Cancer.

This Weight

Swarming bacteria in a wound,
Locust upon a field of gold,
Fibers criss-cross on a loom,
Or a crawling, rank, infectious mold.

And each drone within this hive,
Blinks in wonder below the moon,
Each one begs to stay alive,
Each finds the end comes far too soon.

Mothered in sod, sweat, blood, and tears,
Fathered of seed of shimmering light,
This bleating throng driven by fears,
Cower and cleave in the dark of night.

Every whelp upon it's mother's breast,
As common as the common cold,
Grows to find there is no rest,
From youthful dreams that grow so old.

Infesting every mount, valley, coast, or isle,
Gaping yaw too ravenous to fill,
Plodding through every last lonely mile,
Seldom slowing, or ever standing still.

Be we angel, demon, beast, or child,
Plain as snow, unique as snowflakes,
Beggars for love, yet living beguiled,
In dust, in love, in birth and death partake,

This weight.

Leaf

Endless sinews tributary microscopic,
A wonder of brambled chlorofyl,
Nursing atmosphere at a view myopic,
Even as a rustling caress leaves you still,
And lovely.

Stemmed in myriads upon a twig,
Of a twig branched to the earth.
To music of spheres you waltz and you jig,
Amid your kin flutter in death and rebirth,
So fragile.

First thaw impatiently bud then burgeon,
Beckoned by sun, rain, wind, and time.
Adorn a world at spring's gentle urging,
Awakened by some deep mystical chime,
Roused.

Pale green matures in deeper hues,
'Til colors resplendent in passionate dying,
And a whisper or breeze severs the fuse,
A final dance macabre and falling,
Deep sleep.

Now rest deep in embryonic curl,
As icicles cocoon your nesting frame.
Until warm spring induces you to unfurl,
And God himself calls you by name,
Reborn.

Ever

That the eye should see,
That the tongue should taste,
That the soul should be,
And life be such waste.
Perplexes the aware,
Lost in blank stare.

That the heart should break,
That the penitent should shake,
That the old should die,
And the young should cry.
Awakens from slumber,
To be ever humbler.

That fire burns the stars,
That endless cosmos be ours,
That breath should follow breath,
And we all fear our death.
A sweet wondering why,
Endless bittersweet sigh.
Ever.

Intertwined

In every breath, a world of death,
Within each breeze, are the histories,
Of countless lives, of endless strifes,
Every particle plays, infinity of days,
The story.

Every falling star, rumors eternal wars,
A lovely — chaos dance, design or mere chance?
Endless thread unbroken, each life but a token,
Universe within universe, within blessing or curse,
The plot.

Protons, neutrons, electrons, travel across the eons,
Now a nebulae, now a breath, now a birth, now a death,
Same stuff as the stars, their fiery dreams are ours,
Matrix of matter and Spirit, we love it and we fear it,
The prose.

Every human birth, preludes the pain of earth,
Every human life, lived upon the edge of knife.
Sibling to the galaxies, beloved upon our knees,
Loves, stories, dreams; the light within us gleams.
The Crescendo.

Unfathomable

 Chaos, beauty, terror unfathomable,
Birthing pools of life upon the shore,
Micro ecosystem, once so amicable,
Swallowed by the tide and are no more.
No more.

Churning waters consume quiet coasts,
Drawn by a distant luminous sphere,
Just as sudden, retreats as a ghost,
Just beyond, yet still so near.
So near.

Terrible beauty with monstrous ways,
Hungrily gobbling continents, species, ages,
Relentless — both retreats and pursues it's prey,
Then unleashed and bursting from it's cage.
From it's cage.

Then a hell-fury of blinded rage,
Strips the land and sea of it's stories.
Roar of wind, claw of sea — drench with sorrow,
'Till spent and retiring to quiet energies,
To quiet energies.

Then mournful it laps with a tender kiss,
The shores that broke apart the fury.
Now resume the gifts of life and bliss,
In a blatant, lovely, edenic hypocrisy.
Edenic hypocrisy.

The sea.

Lovely Lonely Boy

An inner logic all his own,
Non sequitur, non conforming soul,
An eye that wonders at all that's shown,
A stumbling, wobbly, gentle foal.

The lonely lovely boy walks slow,
Where communion emerges in pollen's dance,
In a garden where words and phrases grow,
A solitaire beat leads his feet to prance.

Deepening consciousness, deepening divide,
See him ride a shooting star,
The lonely lovely boy does hide,
Escaping within, to world's afar.

Infectious love to calloused hearts,
He reaches through ponds of refracting light,
While longing for love, he stands apart,
Eyes pining for day in the dark of night.

The lonely lovely boy has grown,
Into a young man, hungry for union.
He knows a pain uniquely his own,
Eyes unopened to sweetest communion.

Looking puzzled through his happy places,
Wanting as all do — the human end,
Within he sails in outer spaces,
Longing to find, and be a friend.

My lovely, lonely boy!

Allures

Nature beckons with quiet clues,
Enticing beast and plant with subtle hues,
Or smells, or sights, or inner drives,
Ordering the pattern of myriad lives,
And deaths, and lives once more.

The bee is drawn to roses' red,
The rose — a tart — it's pollen shed,
Upon the breeze, or shifting air,
Connive the thieves within their lair,
Flower and insect in grand encore.

And creatures strive to play along,
The eating, breathing, yeah mating throng,
Lovely and terrible, in tooth and claw,
In living, in dying, in holy awe,
From ground below, to distant shore.

And when life's force is sorely spent,
Nature reclaims what she has lent,
To beast, or plant, woman or man,
Proteins, minerals, consumed by land,
For to be leased out once more.

The story's written within our genes,
Our loves and hates, and every scene,
In birth, in love, in passion's ways,
So compelled are we in all our days,
It is as was, as ever before.

Sunrise Dance

Walking through a lazy morn,
Drops of sweat and drops of dew,
To skin surface drawn, they form,
A film of cool, a feeling new.

Waking eyes to morning rays,
Light basks faces once immersed,
In nights dark and starry haze,
Now aglow, healed and nursed.

Sun, still gentle, cups my face,
A soft kiss into my eyes,
Her lips touch, a gentle embrace,
That quiets the noise of inner cries.

To think, this jewel fired by love,
That speaks through thunder and blood,
It beckons to heights, to rise above,
I dream to taste its cleansing flood.

Walking through a lazy morn,
Sipping a new taste of innocence,
I long again to be reborn,
In the hope of the sunrise dance.

*** This was probably written about 12 years ago.

Quickening

Already your bones have formed,
Toes, fingers, and eyes adorn,
Your slender, fragile, transparent frame,
Though we do not yet know your name,
We love you.

Already your tiny heart's beating,
Umbilical life — an intimate meeting,
Of total dependence, without any shame,
Though we do not yet know your name,
We love you.

Already your little legs are kicking,
Response to voices or some inner yearning,
Our lives will never be the same,
Though we do not yet know your name,
We love you.

Already we are counting days,
And long to be familiar with your ways,
The day we sensed you is the day joy came,
Though we do not yet know your name,
We love you.

Already we have parental tears,
Fueled by all parental fears,
Greatest joy amidst the greatest pain,
Though we do not yet know your name,
We love you.

**** This one goes back 14 years...to when my wife and I were Expecting our first son, Jonathan.

2 Older Poems

I Know I Need To Know
(Poem for Pastor Boillat)

I watched the waves
Wash Away,
I watched the sun
Set today.
I listened as the wind blew,
I listened and listened,
Until I knew.

I watched as the clouds
Changed.
I watched as my parents
Aged.
I listened as the birds sang,
I listened and again they began,
Then I knew.

My life one day
Will wash away.
When I'm done my light
Will fade away.
The wind will blow
Over my grave.
Until it too will pass,
Into another age.

I will be as the spark,
A small part of any song.
Oh God, make sense of this,
For soon I will be gone.

I watched the waves,
Wash away,
I watched as my parents aged,
I watched the sun
Set today.
I know,
I need to know.

****This one written for my Pastor at the time...just diagnosed with Cancer. He died about 2 years latter.

__________



***And a funny teenage poem.

Love is a Bird

Love is a bird
Yet a bird-so absurd,
It flies, free, 'tis true
Until it lands on you.
Then it will starve to feed,
Meet your every need,
Pluck its own feathers,
To keep you warm in cool weather.
It will offer its flesh
To fill your emptiness.
Yes love is a bird
Plucked and torn, yet unheard,
Are any cries of woe.
It doesn't want you to know
That love is free and unearned.
What a bird!

*** Some Really OLD Poems...we're taking my late teen  years here...so over 20 years ago!!!

Night

Mind ebbs in apparent death
Body slakes hunger for breath
Reprieved

Weight of the world appeases
Last thought chills and freezes
Relieved

Filament of fears nocturnal ghost
Possesses defenseless unconscious host
Besieged

Terrors in tormented souls awake
Numbed to demons that will not shake
Retrieved

The Ocean

The ocean is alive in movement
Bending the earth and sky
Chaotic symphony of cloud and wave
Will envelop me until I die

The ocean's hypnotic grace
Ever fixes my longing gaze
Power storms, tender currents
Are the pattern of my days

The ocean is both depth and power
A beauty both fearful and mystery
Adrift within its momentous tides
A lunacy a terror, wondrous and free

The ocean's embrace swallows all
In passion, in anger incomprehensible
Beholding her eyes, sharing her love
I will adore a rose with love equally

Unfathomable


****Another Poem from Maybe 4-5 years ago / Feeling moody by the water's edge!

On Time

Merciless planet tilts in space
Fading darkness-in its place
Light embers on the horizon
Past bone does it emblazon
The day

Chronos's drives hard as flint
Eyes resist but then they squint
Weight of the world floods within
Awaking souls to their chagrin
The Morn

Automaton limbs without thought
Into the fray –movement without plot
When Apollo crests within the sky
Baked brains shuffle without a sigh
The noon

Calendar page in autumn wilt
Day begins to loose the gilt
Breath and shadows growing long
Embracing antithesis of the dawn
The dusk

Shadows give way to lightless paths
In grief, in drink, in darkness baths
Face holes again longing to close
Lose the self within the throes
Of night.

Love impinges on time's cocoon
Calling persons to leap to swoon
Cracking open dark chrysalis
A winged soul in beloved bliss
Morningstar rising.

***1 from maybe 1 year ago...

A Thousand Miles

A thousand miles
May clear the eyes
That cannot see
Beyond the cries
To the love behind the pain.

A thousand miles
May wound the soul
Whose hardened shell
Though black as coal
Longs for innocence again.

A thousand miles
Ignites the longing
For the pure simplicity
Of love’s first dawning
Elusive as the air..

A thousand miles
That is how I love you
My spirit spans the chasm
Stretching between we two
Taste how much I care.

Oh thousand miles
Please wash our eyes
To know the beauty
See through the lies
To the love behind the pain.

***I wrote this 10 Years Ago...

Asunder

Spirit and matter in awkward dance,
Life but collusion, a waking trance,
Proteins carve out a space for one,
Child, Man, Woman, never redone,
Yet so fleeting.

Tenuous hold of mind over matter,
A brief breath, a glass that will shatter,
Ever dispersing the happy assortment,
Of particles, waves, a fated accordment,
Yet unlasting.

As mind doth protest, the body so frail,
Cohesion reneges, cell walls now fail,
As dreams, then memories like vapors flee,
Lost is the stuff that made us we,
Be flailing.

Hardening of arteries, hardening of hearts,
Fire in belly ember’s cool in fits and starts,
Slowing the dance of organs and organelles,
Muting touch, sights, sounds, and smells,
All failing.

Cytoplasmic walls fail, silver cord severs,
Proteins collapse--soul’s naked hereafters,
But love so intense can imprint the pattern,
Of the self, unbound from a darkened cavern,
Now sailing…

Where bodies not bound to the whim of cells,
Where selves are loved from and endless well,
And stories are rewritten and selves reborn,
And held again the ones once mourned,
In healing,
In hoping,
In God.

****Thinking about death, endings...

Shimmer

Groaning within groans and moans

Diaphragm lunging in atmosphere

Ear bones on drum deaf to all tone

Living in the high culture of fear.

Mind numbed with the dumb and numb

Digits curling to palms lustily grasping

Luridly coveting for a dusty crumb

Gaping, hoarsely and blithely gasping.

Warlord rumors blood thirsty war

Victory measured in widow barrenness

Murderous rage of the murderous whore

Undertaker logic, death grins -- more is less.

Waning ozone, waning trees, spirits and sprites

While short lived fat cats sated and satiated

Beauty chokes as stale laughter opiates the fight

Blase-lazy, never filled and fully sedated.

Crystaline shimmer hope shimmering

Slivering dark sky in crackling webs

Bullet whole light presence glimmering

Tide rising on a hope that flows, and ebbs.

Eucharistic life, wine, bread, body, blood

Dying, rising, bleeding, breaking needing

From the fresh dew upon a new rose bud

True parable of living swallowing dying.

****Another poem from about 1 year ago.

Love in the Dusk

Morning's mist begets the song

The winged chorus of the dawn

When horizon bleeds morning light

A new longing that all be right

And undivided.

Evening comes and daylight fades

And long grow the lines of shade

Horizon bleeds its fading light

The red hues will fade to night

And quietness.

Life ever continues in circling days

Like carrion birds whose only prey

Are creatures whose life is beaten back

Whose bones will whiten with the lack

Of fleshly life.

Youth and passion's embers wane

And love is lost when it is sane

Then age begins to take its hold

And death sculpts life into its mould

Of formlessness.

The embrace of love withholds this tide

The kiss of lovers that can abide

Side by side in life and death

Holding fast to every breath

Of otherness.

Constraints

Rolling, folding, ageless spaces,
Water and rock, earth remade,
Emblems of love's beatific traces
Colliding, collapsing, till Shiva is stayed.

Why can love not heal?
Why do we have to feel,
This weight.

Corneas, minds, yeah cells abhor,
Boys morphed into serial killers,
Sight of endless hate and war,
The bloody price of endless thrillers.

Why can life not gain?
Why this bloody refrain?
So numb.

Magic beasts now dumb retreat,
Smitten sprites vapors disperse,
Before the techno march of feet
Hungry void -- the endless curse.

Why are angels so quiet?
Why no heavenly riot?
Toward change.

Rumors of light beyond the cloud
Midwives mystics, and innocents,
Taste and see before bold and loud,
Squelch immanence and transcendence.

Why is what is most real,
Beyond what we can feel?
One hope!

***A Poem About the space around me...closing in...so it feels like sometimes.

Amen

Elliptical wonder of space and time,

Spinning stars, nebulas sublime,

Dance macabre, dark matter specter,

Substrata presence to sweet nectar

Of photons to eyes,

Of sound waves to ears.

Birth, death of stars and simians,

Breath measured in years or eons,

Star dust, bone dust, shine down, gaze,

Souls lost, found, wander, graze,

In unwarranted beauty,

In states of ecstasy.

Proteins fire neurons at speed of light,

Selves, memories, dreams, will blight

As cartilage, bones, and tissues fail

Curbed spines, shrinking minds, so frail,

Await to close the lids,

Await their story's end.

First kiss, first lover, first epiphany,

Sacrament soul in polyphony,

Intimate as Oxygen within - without,

Grace to be gazing, aging, on this route,

Towards lands unknown,

Towards love unbound.

Pierced, despised, much maligned,

Worship, whisper, fully entwined,

Fire in the belly, fire in the equations,

Terrible in passion and in persuasions,

Towards faith,

Towards hope,

Towards love.

Amen.