December Sky

The darkness of  December's evening sky,
'Tis the perfect canvass for the hand of God,
Ethereal, tar-sands, taut across the heavens,
Swallows all in pitch, but will chose to laud,
One sweet sad portend, to make a spirit sigh.

And see the cloudy mist in the dark midnight,
Like a gassy film upon the swampy scum,
Back-lit as elusive Artemis, stalks the ages,
Then the curtain passes and hear the thrum,
Chords of soul's desire, plucked in lunar light.

Hosts of starry ghosts emerge the inky black,
Constellations clear their cadre for the advent,
Bright stars — the baby and angels in Gloria choir,
Boughs bend o'er skies like shepherd supplicants,
And I too, in quietness begin to feel my lack.

In the darkness of December's darkest hour,
The Brother to every son and daughter of man,
Born to us, the morning star, this Christmas morn,
Though the evil will pierce both foot and hand,
Fragile, yet brightly burns the love that will power,

Salvation.

Cool Breeze

Tapping windows like endless fingertips,
Drum, drumming rhythmic droplets,
Intimate, like a cool breath shiver,
Down the neck, down the spine,
Goosebump arms, legs in frosty nips,
Piercing garment, skin, and bone,
To taunt the nerves in dulling ache,
'Til limbs cradle in a shuffling dance,
And puffy breaths escape through lips,
Blue with Boreas breath.

Throngs

Bare arms waving, fingers extending,
Garments of rainbow tattered and blown,
Gnarly, knuckled, entangled, yet graceful,
A thicket of bramble, a coterie of crones,
Stray.

Pleading to grey sky for garments of green,
Endless fingers sinew and lattice the heavens,
Like pilgrims throng the path to a shrine,
Airily, this company coiffed in lichens,
Sway.


As their numbers extend in the failing light,
Endless frames with crackled skin of bark,
Seem to demur to the autumnal summons,
Bowing and blending in the shadowless dark,
Pray.

Hawk

Like a dancer floats above the stage,
Glides o'er thespians on hairlike stings,
Like Peter Pan, perhaps, softly alights,
On window sill, folding arms like wings,
Effortless, guileless, glide through the blue,
Your cry echoes long as the siren sings,
Drawing breath from me.

Your wings flit aside stale drafts of air,
Poised seraph on the breath of the wind,
Mobile-immobile, as if painted on clouds,
With back-lit wingspan, the sun has limned,
To eyes sky pining for your graceful glide,
A sight that raises the down and chagrined,
Drawing awe from we.

And a blink transforms thee, angel to fury,
Wisps of chilled breath as talons extend,
Oblivious oblivion fate the rat or the hare,
Plummeting kill and with prey you ascend,
Then shortly resume, sacral and ethereal,
Painting sky as your cry will ever  portend,
Drawing fear, in love, to be.

Story of the Earth

In wrinkled cliffs that endless sinew,
And folds of crust, of soil, of stone,
This grandeur presses upon my breast,
Endless acres, since the world was new,
And wind and water as fingers to clay,
Shapes in softness or in violent hew.

And calls the voice: "again, again,"
O'er azure lakes and mountain pass,
Bloom, and leaf, and cub, and spawn,
In blink of light come through the glass,
To unfurl, unfold, to suckle, to swarm,
Creation's cacophony — the holiest mass.

Here, unfold my limbs and blink my eyes,
One of the cast of this evolving creation,
Part tooth and claw, part seraphic light,
Times of terrible torment and beatific elation,
Such beauty, such trauma, such is the truth,
Of our world dancing amid the constellations.


The story of the earth.

That Road, Again

Wandering, wandering, wondering, walk,
Places and pathways to no place at all,
Curse to the calendar, curse to the clock,
Timekeeping distracts and casts a pall,
On pacing and thinking and taking stock,
To be walking awaking whatever befall.

Footfalls press on through the underbrush,
Unsteady the footfall that knows not its lot,
Backwood brambles, entangle and crush,
As clothing and hair, even skin are caught,
Then pause as a clearing whispers a shush,
In silence and solitude will my soul be taught.

Musing, mine eye, did spy a familiar path,
A passage neglected, like a long lost friend.
Evaded through the storm and its aftermath,
Now it freshly compels my soul to attend.
A hard climb, where grace tempered in wrath,
Redeems! For in penance the path I'll ascend.

Of those days where my feet had but strayed,
A wanton wandering in the dark night of my soul.
Are such days ever lost? How are they weighed?
Are they but flotsam floating on life's rocky shoal?
Such stumbles — the place where grace is conveyed,
The floundering footsteps of beloved young foal.

Wandering, wandering, wondering, walk,
Places and pathways to a place never seen,
In communio, in presence, my steps in lock,
Even while walking in that space in-between,
Walking soul soars-crying like a mystic hawk,
In body, in blood, on a path long foreseen.

Footfalls press on...

Human Soul

A human soul is far too constrained a space,
To nurture love and tend to cold disdain,
Harboring hatred will usher in the reign,
Of those  angels far removed from grace.

Ah sweetness, such lightness of being,
The endless acceptance of joy and praise,
Yet fragile and prone to a sad malaise,
And to a cold and wanton way of seeing.

A human soul is a gifting far too fragile,
At every crack its windows leak in tears,
At every doubt it trembles in its fears,
'Til all hopes are stifled and are futile.

First, the tender words will fail their flow,
And kindnesses become sore endangered,
Fields scorched that once blooming flowered,
Now a place where nothing green can grow.

A  human soul is a gifting beyond measure,
Forged in love —a facet of the face of God,
Both priceless diamond and scurrilous fraud,
Reflecting bright whatever be its treasure.

And when the covenants are all betrayed,
'Tis a dying of the one time verdant canopy,
A state of babel and a rabid  entropy,
The perfect space to be mortally afraid.

My human soul — a place vacated by  amour,
Yet cherished  more than I can understand,
Such is the pity,  for I can be but a man,
Content to be with my Lord and troubadour,

A human soul.

Awakening

Coolness of night cedes to coolness of day,
For endless stars and worlds and galaxies,
In grand ballet of gravity and dark matter,
Gently sway the earth and we into a ray,
Of morning's purgation.

First light — kin and beasts — old or spry,
Summon sleeping spirits from roaming reverie,
From places of pains, joys, and chimeras.
Beings demur as the morning luster belies,
Sleep's spectral evasion.

Dew dampened drafts, deep in bronchioles,
Move spirits and bodies in restoring stretches,
Morning sprites ruffle hair and encrust eyes,
As our souls return from their Elysian strolls,
Wobbling before Sol's invasion. 

Wonder — these morning  rites with no regard,
To joys or pains of bodies and souls  —  unfold,
Stubborn as birth and death and love and hate,
Be life a bitter herb or life as sweet as nard,
Aurora balances the equation,

In the awakening.

Here Again

Ever present, this ghost haunts the places,
The dusty corridors of a tired mind.
The flashes of joy that pang in doubt,
Ever shut my lids as I recall your faces —
Your love professed in a greening park,
Your rage that I was not more, much more.
Love's every grace ends in disgraces,
There again.

Ever knowing, I'll walk in clouds no more,
Hubris to sip sweet nectar with the gods,
Expecting my love to heal the wounding,
Banished from heaven, ne'er again to soar.
Our vows, now become tired old words,
Our brittle hearts crack like old porcelain,
And this exchange of covenants for war,
There again.

Ever feeling, that beauty and truth are lost,
Eyes strain to see — in the crimson dawning,
The paschal blood seeping through billows,
For loving — dying is loving's defining cost.
And though eyes of the soul in monochrome,
Pain in each and every revelatory moment;
Love — God in truth and beauty, will accost,
Here again,
Again,
Here.

Revelatory

Awash, we be, in mystery, in sacrament,
Every sight both revelatory and numinous,
Every photon paints canvases on corneas,
Every glimpse ekes a tad of the luminous.
There, those very leaves in gentle sway,
Bespeak presence past and continuous.
See.

Gently fingertips feel endless textures,
Every crease — both tactile and treasure,
Every surface teases endless receptors.
This, the language of pain and of pleasure,
There, romance caresses a flushing cheek,
Revering body and spirit in equal measure.
Feel.

Birdsong or baroque warble ear bones,
Every wave both euphoric and melancholy,
Every pitch agitates air and souls alike.
The stuff of wind is both Spirit and holy.
There, a bard attends to a feathery muse,
A melody of love, life, and youthful folly.
Hear.

Salty, sour, umami, and every sweetness,
Every savor both chemistry and charity.
Flavors form friendships with kin and stranger,
Every meal a place for bonds and for levity.
There, lips and tongue squint eyes and face,
As taste drops the veil for a moment of clarity.
Savor.

As every breath  inhales endless exhales,
As endless stories echo upon the breeze,
Our narratives, joys and tears ever enmesh,
As the stuff of our lives in perpetual reprise.
There, my heart breaks in the morning light,
The cost of the angel and the man ill-at-ease.
Muse.

Awash we be, in beauty, in sacrament.

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 to walk the extra mile
And love though life is colder.

In woe, new hope enlivens
The dark sees 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,
My Abigail.
My sorrow

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


** I wrote this in 1999. I found it by accident when cleaning up some files. My marriage to Abigail is ending in divorce now. Seeing this poem from 1999 is yet another reminder of the long journey of pain we've been through. It's my deepest sorrow that we never found light on the other side.

Unknowing

Dusty rose tints the billowing grey,
And the day bends into the night,
Like blood in water in still time,
Muses whispering a passion play.

And rain rent from drying clouds,
Shimmers crystalline in fading skies,
And rose tints ferment to wine,
As evening robes in darker shrouds.

King Sol, wounded, winces crimson,
And piercing once last the orchid veil,
His shafts of light like bolts extend,
'Til the night-watch prevail, imprison.

As the last embers of day smolder,
And Queen Luna ascends the sky,
Blue light beckons to lovers and poets,
Numinous whispers to every beholder.

And the wolves pine in moonlight howl,
For few sons and daughters of men,
Will gaze skyward with mouth agape,
So miss such beauty as they strowl.

Unknowing.

Thou, Thee, and Me

Cloudward gazing on grassy bed,

As air anoints my brow with dew,

And  pining groans into the sky,

A world of pain within my head,

This longing aches that all be new,

An earnest prayer lags to a "why?"

Oh Thou.

This lavish loveliness all about,

Such beauty breaks into my soul,

And tearing eyes stare at the sun,

My quiet sigh rises to a shout,

Incongruous beauty enacts a toll, 

My praying tears before the one, 

To thee.

Yet in these times,  all seems lost.

Sons and daughters cast to the Baals,

The meaning of persons — eclipsed.

As ozone and sprites bear the cost,

Love and dust like weight on scales,

Such anomie–vertigo in betwixt,

'Ah me.

On Life's Way

Ever the dim melancholy cry,
Ever the moon pursues the sun,
Crepuscule, aurora, but glimpse
Each other, as but one light,
Ascends to the apex of the sky.

Pining, like the Dane to his Regine,
Knowing the searing heat of love,
Knowing the dark angels within,
This longing, ever lost in longing,
Unable to leap the dark ravine.

In setting free the broken sparrow,
Authenticity carried such a weight,
Lives broken, and lives reformed,
And bounded mind in leap of faith,
Lover lilts,  pierced by his own arrow.

Sometimes the road less traveled,
Is a sadness, is a sorrow of solitude.
Not every love though  forged in vow,
Grows old and deep in lasting bonds.
So Kierkegaard whose very self unraveled.

Yet was found in the arms,
That caught his perilous leap,
Catching each perilous leap,
Along life's way.

Unswaddled

Ghost mists expand and swallow sky,
In coal, then sallow, and back-lit white,
And beasts, and birds, and you and I,
From the eye of God are hid from sight.

And below nebulous, vaporous forms,
Time slipping incognito into the day,
Shadowless shadowlands of pending storms,
A still-life canvas — a stilted portrait.

Nimbus shades cocoon over nascent corona,
But edges fray from a mass restlessness,
Creamy ribbons flow from azural persona,
'Til all sigh the air of celestial undress.

And light, and drops, and bracing breeze,
Summons flight from flightless flesh,
And below my toes roll vale and trees,
Unswaddled ecstasy in auroral enmesh.

Alive.

Love

If life were made of light and laughter,
How be? How does this sacrament play?
Part improvisation, part cacophony,
The movement, the music, the muse.
And in the lengthening of the day —
Soothing in symmetry of fear and beauty,
Not a science, but a magic, an alchemy,
Angels conjure red from skies of gray,
Ever beckoning souls, each to the other.

If we be tapestry of diamond and dirt,
How be? For each, 'tis every other thought,
Part angel choir, part wolf's moon howl,
The cry of dereliction, a blushing swoon.
Here — the formation of souls are wrought.
Within love's longings and love's losings,
The fire in the equations of our mythology,
Beauty and truth imprint; such is the lot,
Of creatures oft formed in a world of hurt.

If love burn brighter than faith and hope,
How be? That lovers 'oft pine melancholic,
Tristan and Iseult, Lancelot and Guinevere,
Archetype brother and sister to every heart,
As if every love were born of the diabolic,
Yet love in longing ever loves to beckon,
'Til love itself is worshiped in sacrament;
In places wild, kneeling in a spirit bucolic,
Love is metaphor, parable,truth and trope,

Eternal.

Winter Waking

Breathing deep the ghostly January air,
A dozing mind cool breath will spur,
Though numbed in winter's den, will stir,
And skin will taunt and goosebump hair,
Awakens me.

Silver rays evoke a gaze one New Year morn,
Clouds bleed light into smoke gray sight,
And a cold faded world bittered in blight,
Reveals its hues and sheds its coat forlorn;
Unforsakens me.

Stepping in light, as light to souls alights
Tears crystal ducts moved in angel symmetry,
With beasts, Saints, sinners in strange amity,
This sacrament washes my soul in dawning rites,
Enquickens me.

Crystal light,
Clears my sight,
Reborn,
Reborn,
Reborn.