Metacarpus

Lines of elegance bend in space,
Contract in a gnarled boulder
Twisted bone, sinew, and skin,
Endless wonder to the beholder,
Like a sprout from a husky seed,
Then to rest, as a poised spider.

Grooves in-fold like a river bed,
Endless tributaries tell a story,
Of work, wounds, or simply years,
Palm lines tell as if divinatory,
Not fate, but of brooding the past,
And something of the weight of glory.

And endless are the words of hands,
Caressing, holding, or raising fists,
Enfolding prayer, clinging to love,
Or cupping a face that ever persists
Questioning, with arms extended high,
Fingers tremble in the morning mists.

Empty cups rest upon a wearied lap,
Tears slip through finger and thumb,
Caught one moment in pores and pleas,
Until nail and skin release the sum
Of breath and pain in bended palms,
Resisting not more what will become.

The sacrament seed,
The true ending.

Memory

There is a place where clouds scramble,
Hungry to swallow vale and wood, and I,
Lost spaces and memories in misty bramble,
Cool as death, as a life lost in a sky,
Without stars.

And in pointless wanderlust, feet shuffle,
Like a vagabond stream without water bed,
Shades of shrines suggest, and voices muffle
A troth, a truth, that has long been unsaid,
Without voice.

Suffer the soul that can't remember its warmth,
Blythe to the longing that leads to praise.
A presence in pace walks through the glomth,
In death, in communion, in life, will raise,
Without scorn.

And a dream or a memory of a place never seen,
Dispels and displaces the ghostly horizon,
And places, and people, as breath into gene,
Retells the story as the grace will emblazon,
With friendship.

Ears

Like heffalumps and woozles, (1)
Like a Rodin or a Picasso,
Souls afire with star dust,
Yet jesting in the side-show,
Half life.

The spirit of the dead poets,
Like oxygen flows in our veins,
Their words rooted in millennia,
Yet lost like runaway trains,
Half formed.

And the deepest sacral moments,
With a "thou" I wish to share,
And to gather the holy other,
Heart bonds to heart in prayer,
Half seen.

How be the organs of listening,
Have no root in heart nor soul?
And the words of love and pain,
Are like dust upon the scroll?
Halftone.

As the richness of all meaning,
Like pixels blowing in a breeze,
Never congeal the I and thou,
Poema unheard from bended knees,
Wandering lost,

Without ears to hear.
__

1) This reference to a cartoon may seem trite here...except that I wanted to convey not only the high artistry of we as creatures of words, but also the fantastic nature of we as creatures. I may change it if it falls flat (with the 3-4 readers who may peek at this stuff anyhow).

The Sacrament of Dog

This old world so grinds me down,
The petals are strewn all about,
This place of gray and earthen brown,
My soul haunted by darkest doubt,
A quadruped angel in furry gown,
Wagging wiggler with cold-wet snout,
Sweetly graces me.

Earnest eyes with dogged regard,
And hind parts in dizzying praise,
A nuzzling kindness cancels cafard,
Friendship of presence not of phrase,
A wet kiss, catches me off guard,
Gift of contentment in these dog days,
Pebbles of Charity. (1)

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1. My dog's name is Pebbles

Blood Sky

Heed the creed of steel, of gun,
Drowns the choral mists of dawn,
While blood has called for blood,
Luna folds wings and is withdrawn,
Blood-red the auroral skies portend,
As bleeds a man with fate foregone.

Young men leap to the drums of war,
Bone's chill at their cold resolve,
Dimple cheeked youths in folded brow,
Kill. Primal souls deliberate, devolve.
State and church spurn their salvation,
Cold vengeance that none need to absolve.

And the man and his company lay bleeding,
The sword rewards this merchant of death,
Our sons plunder o'er their gasping frames,
Blood prints extend with their last breath,
The Pakistan sun still sees fit to rise,
Upon the end of this murderous Macbeth.

As the sun caught up with western skies,
The smell of blood upon the silver wind,
Jubilant songs tumult from vacuous souls,
Cold umbrage that grace could not rescind,
One hundred thousand with skeletal stare,(1)
Kin, Neighbor, God himself in deep chagrin.

And the sun,
And the clouds,
And children,
And birdsong,
Continue.



1) This is about how many people total have perished so far in American efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our own 3000 fallen, though immensely tragic, is but a small percentage of cycle of killing and revenge.

Descent

How can you rightly be remembered,
Burn and blaze in my waning soul,
I with the sense of a new born foal,
Neglect the love that gathered,
This one to its breast.

You have entered my darkest places,
And I held the spike and the spear,
Cold. As dark filled the sky with fear,
Hades halls were stormed by graces,
Only dying could attest.

As there I stood with dripping spear,
With all the children of Adam's race,
What is this — our sin did God erase?
There his blood has stained this sphere.
Without rancor or protest.

And I can taste your flesh and blood,
At your table, the bread and the wine,
Brings you — as death could not confine,
A seed that dies, will arise and bud,
Hope for all the dispossessed.

How can you rightly be remembered,
Burn and blaze this birthing soul,
This body and blood — an ardent coal,
That ambers the grace I once hungered,
In death — love did you bequest,

To save a broken man,
And his kin,
And his race,
In your descent.

Recoil

Our blue-green home pulses life,
Blooms of plankton sea-titans feed,
And pollens and bees each compound,
The living dreams of beast and seed,
Exuding artistry — lavish in excess.
Yet, trembling — aware of fragile need,
Every cell draws a breath.

With gifts of rain and sod and air,
And eyes that crinkle in the sun,
With kin, we laugh, and tell stories,
Yet still cringe at what we become,
Like a bird that flutters from a hand
Offering seed — it's hunger will shun.
Every soul knows its fear.

And while we could but live for love,
Our kind craves the poverty of power,
Pulsing the blood of seraphs and satans,
Our love is lust, as we long to tower
Uber-strong over quiet kindred souls;
Though graced, firmly return a glower.
Everyone by tooth and claw.

And I too, like a dog with lowered tail,
Will test and doubt the stranger's hand.
Though every crystal revealed as light
From water, my blue-grey orbs will brand,
Betrays such love that fires each life,
Each dream, each place, each grain of sand.
Everything yet in strange recoil.

Penitent,
Confession.