Eyes

Why do the windows of your soul —
Their blue slight a jealous sky —
Entangle and disarm in a glimpse,
Like a shiver, like a hearts cry,
And the man is a child once more,
Lost where the truth and the lie,
Blend bittersweet.

Why do the soft gelatin spheres —
Their shine pales the golden ore —
Exude endless pain and reproach,
Loved and lost and loved once more,
A child adrift on the rolling sea,
Intersects the wound at the very core,
Of all that is.

Why do your eyes in lock with mine —
Their depth an ocean none can plumb —
Both reveal a truth and conceal a lie,
Both warm my heart and make me numb?
A pilgrim lost in a cretinous crusade,
Unsure of what the dream has become,
In eventide's shadow.

Blithe

And the air combs the varied green,
Reeds canticle with woodland leaves,
And eyes rest in the ember light,
Breeze fills lungs with life unseen,
And breath, and warmth, and gravity,
A call to soul, to mind, to gene,
Perceive.

For what is flesh, and what is life,
And what is love, and what is light,
There — joys that rupture all decorum,
Here — sorrow that these joys requite,
In the kiss or the back of the hand,
The presence beckons to have the sight,
Perceive.

For the artistry in every spec of space,
We would but drown within the ecstasy,
So the mercy in mercy suffers — staid,
As this lonely race forages in fantasy,
And eyes squinting in gathering twilight,
Blithe to the beauty, sulk in jealousy.
Perceives,
Not.

Mortal

Gazing a horizon's bloody wound,
The line severs night and day,
My heart echoes a wolf cry moon,
Holding back the ache's tidal sway,
A drowning gasp in a flailing swoon,
As soul from soul in endless stray.

And two halves of a soul sunder,
Whose eyes through the looking glass?
Bleeding storm, and pain and thunder,
Stumbling helpless, entangled morass.
As Love is sought, like so much plunder,
The broken table hosts a broken Mass.

Somewhere, in the places of the heart,
Wounds rift chasms that none can heal,
A flow carves clefts — like a deep rampart,
Where fetal framed eyes in quiet, steel,
For the throes that hew mere life 'to art,
For what the drying of oceans will reveal.

The wound —
Mortal,
Mystic,
Breath.

Wings Upon Glass

There is this deep longing,
An unfettered life,
A lightness of being,
A waking strange dreaming,
Entranced by a muse,
Realm of the fairie,
A memory without seeing.

Wings upon glass.

And life's living t'ward dying,
Pain gasping for air,
Or blithe in rote step,
While we - still do sigh pining,
To walk among clouds,
Or in orbital rounds,
Yet a sightless heart crying.

Wings upon glass

And 'ere the paling of night,
Wings flail hopeless,
Clown dances misteps,
And wed to a hellish fright,
Though windows ajar,
The soul is enclosed,
A small world void of sight.

Wings upon glass.

Hands cusp beating blindness,
And bleed the maddened pecking —
Wings drink an opened horizon,
Through night,
Into a day,
Without glass.

Don't Trust to Happiness

Tremble gentle crumpled limbs,
Born in cold and age, and tears,
Frame unfolds as does the world,
Both more and less than it appears,
Each exhale marks one less breath,
Bittersweet as the vision clears.

At the altar of vows and love,
With words, and wax, and rings,
Icarus flies too near the sun,
And free-falls with crumpled wings
For the bond, like flesh itself,
Holds by breath and fragile strings.

And when the nations cease their wars,
Brothers will melt guns to plowshares,
'Til greed or power will seed a slander,
Muting amity and the chorus of prayers,
And eye for eye, and blood for blood,
As demons and reapers sell their wares.

So savor the wine when it is poured,
For the wine, the vine and the vineyard,
Will sour, will wilt, will be deserted,
As with everything held in high regard,
Don't trust, for the winds are fickle,
That fan the fires 'til all is charred.

The Poet's Word

Sway, the blades of green —
Cascade, in rustling tones,
Mistrals glide o'er glades,
O'er sands and o'er stones.
But whence the ghost depart?
What calls the whistling moans?
Their pitch dances on the drums,
Sweet warbling rings ear bones,
In song.

Therein — the orbital rounds,
Oscillate atoms and spheres,
That move the airy planes,
Through space and atmospheres,
Conjures zephyrs from the air —
In gales or in gusts appears —
Nobles or peasants at prayer,
Are moved in sacred fears,
In awe.

And the waters rise and fall,
At the whimsy of the moon,
And the paradox of parentage,
But by the mercy of each swoon,
There would be nor I, nor thou,
Nor beauty unfurling a cocoon.
But only for the Poet's word,
A cosmos would ne'er be hewn,
In love.

Ardent

That wind, that dust, that water,
Converge within cells and souls,
Flesh and fire, like ardent coals,
Each both infuse and abutter,
And reveal.

And in the glisten in the eye,
And the crease within the cheek,
There the I and Thou bespeak,
As the substance within the sigh,
Reveals.

In pain, and water, and blood,
Embers kindle in infant flame,
And the holy calling of a name,
The cherished and ardent bud,
Reveals.

Though every flame will flicker,
Short on fuel, with many a douse,
Yet with kindred stars will rouse,
And will again blaze the quicker,
and reveal,

The burning,
The living,
Ardent.