A day fleeting and pirouetting, Torrent of moments cascading in light, A flood played in with childlike vetting Which is to say unappraised til the night. Yet life savored without reserving Terror for hours we relinquish with ease Was gold streaming, too much deserving Hands that could only travail as they please. So soon seasons are reified and Slumber in eddies of restless repose, Then time rushes and crashes high on Rocks of diversion beyond youth's control. The New Moon in the black sky rises, Cloudy the twilight opaque is aroused, And time's current is catalyzed, is Rendered so vicious in midnight's dark shroud. The font flows in the hazy cover, Often unseen and elusive in sound, When young leisure like leaving lovers Swaps all the pastimes to idleness found. The young Moon with its novice lantern Casting its waxing and slanting caress Upon night like a journeyman who, Working new wonders, is ever impressed. The new night is now lit up slightly, Partially visible now in the stream Which too gambols, pretending spritely, Calming its tempo like moments in dreams. It shows some of its pace so freely, Stretching its waves like the hum of a drone When, what changes? The pace discreetly Morphs through a tidal mechanic unknown. The night passes in strange distortions, Warps in a swirling temporal delay; Its flow quickens then lacks all motion, Even seems still as it speeds to the day. The deep hours in their coalescing Over the cup of perception beguiles The sense subtle. The waves progressing Faster and slower than sense reconciles. As day surely ascends upon the Misty horizon though only half-seen, So too after enduring longer Reaches of time than its wingspan would seem. A sense stumbling through every midnight Into the sunlight's eternalized now For one moment: the fleeting insight Teaching how fickle a sense we're endowed. I lie watching the coming, going Moments parading deceived by the show To think, time must be slowing, showing Now in my aging the way that it flows. It's not so. And the time is ever Subject to passion and boredom and need In my eyes; so despite endeavors, Moments will never relent to one speed. In truth never its pace adjusting, Constant above less the turmoil inside; My want (always a wanting something) Turning attention to patience defied. A clear moment inert and empty Offers a chance to observe and be felt, The tide's changes from flowing gently: Faster or slower are symptoms of self. The time slipping between my fingers, Powerless days that will always feel lost To blank history's dustbin linger Ever repeating themselves as the cost. I am young, well, comparatively, Dreaming my daydreams as yet to appear, And time's distance unravels from me, Stretching the seconds from that time to here. Those days waiting in unfulfillment, Patient but restless, unable to hold The now blending together till then Pouring beyond me in murmurs untold. Unreal present of concrete moments, How can you fasten my heart far away? I live errantly, so expectant, Waiting, unable to live in today. And so, drifting while sadly singing, Must I accept for companion the moon And no other among the flinging Foam and the waves while I drift off to Soon.
Month: June 2021
One drop of water
One drop of water To sate a perennial thirst. The trickle with violent burst: first, Last; lasts no longer. Spent quickly, driven, Received, as it were, a lone thought But never so emptied: no draught Dries what is given. This droplet's ringing Aloud on the lonely sandbar, The splash on my forehead sends far Notes sweetly singing: Front, back, replaying Across the interior soul, Invoking the melody whole; Please, craft its staying. Please do remind me Of cups that have yet to be filled; Behold there that final drop spilled Itself will find me. Show me its roundness Reflecting inside its globe all The beauty of living, writ small, Which flows around us. How everything in A tiny wet sphere revolves, then Re-evolves! Its dance dissolves in New tones it brings in. Hues stretch as you do, And were you to pop, those sights split, Appear in your troupe as light flits, Song changed anew too. Teach me to mutate, To harness an angle without, To sing for the song and not doubt Whence comes the music. Teach me to fracture, Apart and in pieces, whole still, A different portrayal, song will Be manufactured. Then you be swallowed And then I'll perceive my thirst, worse Than ever before, with love nursed Once more and hallowed. You drop, become me, Like you am I drunk by Earth's view. I'm finding myself in need too: Songs must come from me. Cry water, water! Encircling around, but don't think Or else you'll forget to drink; sing: Songs; music: foster.
A lonely morning wakes the same
A lonely morning wakes the same: My bed I share with none, And back to bed I fall asleep Alone when day is done. And you, my love, so far away, I love like you were here. I write you letters everyday; We talk as though you're near. The horror house I'd save you from, Were I your gallant knight, Of moldering confinement, lost Potential, souring spite. Entrapped in circumstances that Necessitate the wait, And forced by plague to stay in place Or risk your mother's fate. Oh I am hale and fear not death; My nerves, though slightly swayed, Yet turn towards our meeting but For cancer, I am stayed. I cannot hold you while she wails, Not even glean your pain; I cannot find a way around The risk to her, it's plain.
I still remember–that cliché
I still remember–that cliché, But all the same–the heat of The sun clinging to the black tar And bouncing before vision, Beside our strides upon our walk. We weren't more than friends, although I fondly wished to have him. But my nature is to yearn; no: To pine to seduce Never; To fall in loves that don't exist. But not that day. We turned along The sidewalk's gray meander. Our long legs we put to use, stepped In sight of the green walls of The gardens curling near the street. He led me to an entrance in The fence which wasn't into The real garden; rather we came Upon a remote wooded Seclusion, there to house our day. The auburn promenade had been Well-trodden down the path through The grove's bosom, deep in her heart, Outstretching the sought clearing; It stood within a thicket green. The thing was large and made of wood, And when I asked him what it Was used for, he didn't quite know But guessed it was for hanging Up scores for sports of yesteryear. We clambered up the wobbling thing, Without a care for his part, For my part with fear but spurred on; Together we sat on the Forgotten scaffold for a while. We looked out on the vacant field, The boughs between obscuring Our seat. From my pocket I pulled The lighter and blunt, lit it. We shared a smoke, a spark in time. I dreamt on what it means to love, I wondered of its power, My friend played a joke on me by Pretending he'd leap down from The tower; I was so afraid. I marveled at delusion, and I saw how high I held him; The high precipice my fond heart Had carried him to, lofty, Above me always pedestaled. But what could all my fondness do If chance should blow adversely, Or black-winged descend upon him? If peril should strike, will there Be wings of love protecting him? He joked and I was flustered, I Was nervous, but we laughed and We smoked, gazing at the clouds where Our smoke will disperse, joining The orange bed among the skies.
The silver clouds on march up high
The silver clouds on march up high, Their purely white extents, So silently their sparkling's A sight to please my eye; In fact a dangerous event, For even such a thing So captivating in the sky Can soon become my end If it distracts me while I drive.
The Moon
Night approaches you: your ancient father's shadow, Primordial tradition washing over your Luminescence in the darkness of another Dimension. Keep delighting in your delicate Glowing skirts and prettiness so pale suspended Beyond in the obscurity of outer space. All the smoothness and the scars alike displayed in The atavistic night opaque: now waxing, now Waning, often hidden, always fixed so far off. Your beauty isn't so despised while wandering In this universe that thrives on different light; let Your soft, reflected smile relay its lonely ray In the solitude of twilight dear boy, gazing Across the vastness of creation's gulf on fire, Lit by flames that fuel dimensions drowning out your Wan gleam, and seeing light like yours so far away. Scream aloud in night so lonesome, shriek and howl in The gloam of solitary hours, the longing cell, While the distance that sequesters you compounds to Become a measurement of time. But stay awake; Wait. Believe a light will find you underneath light, Akin to yours, a light unlike your father's plane. Softer light once thought unthinkable, the light of A smile refracted in prismatic eyes with yours. Distance is but time, and patience is the hand of The clock that's bridging, sweeping on impossible Wings to touch one that's so far away; out gliding Beyond the sprawling skies and suturing the veins Of the rivers. Minimizing country miles and Connecting all the ends between your wits and gas Mileage. Patience is the steadfastness permitting All passion's kindling; patience is the lesson which Puts the heart through its enriching pain, and patience Becomes the season where an honest love may bloom.
Distance
I'll spare the cliché of cursing myself And wishing to have those hours returned: The times we ignore each other without Intent or perhaps on purpose; the plane Of minutes so empty, let down, bereft, When longing and conversation so yearned, Igniting as hope so briefly piffs out The fuel of an interaction in vain, Expended; and longing only remains. But wanes and then you return once again, So soothingly, never mad as I fear You might be for all the times that I fall Asleep when you want to talk.
I can’t tell you why Florida has this temperament
I can't tell you why Florida has this temperament, The sky won't belie its designs quite so easily To me. Air once hot, humid all through the firmament Then shifts, reappears crisp and cold, as if teasing me And says: try as you might, my tropic desires hold sway; Not old stars nor dates seasons change can tell me the clime. So dress light til cold fronts appear on a random day. And though Winter sang Summer well for some days, in time The night ushered in frigid mornings more often. Chill And frost hung around floors at dawn, and the light was clear With pale, slightly pearlesque allure, and was softer still In cost here than up north; invited a thought my dear Of you and of me–lonely beds in a frozen place, But soon there will be only warmth in our shared embrace.
There am I in a crypt of cosmic secrets
There am I in a crypt of cosmic secrets, Barred from any retreat; beyond the pathways Always turning, and always choosing; finding Wondrous feeling, but still I wander through the Avenues with the mist of time obscuring Every way. Indeterminate horizon Leaving me with the here and now, enough to See, enough to decide among the tasks at Hand: enshrouded by possibilities and Circumstances that sometimes I'm obliged to Bow my head to the floor for. Sometimes storming, Raging, echoes of mania distort the Senses; bleak fog descends upon the mind's eye. Biding time as though convalescent, I've been Trapped before in the suffering and blindness That depressive anxiety demands with Winds of changeless insanity to whip the Spirit into dejection, fear to crush the Agency of each day. Compulsion of a Phobia, a corruption of the Will from Action to an Avoidance Need; imposing Terror fixed in the deepest mind, beyond the Reach of consciousness menacing, controls the Mind and body by instinct. Time unfurls in Inconceivable ways. All flight and yet the Day's escape is reversed; the threat remains to Steal tomorrow by painting days as months and So elongating panic that the days will Smear together as one conglomerated Misery. And the mass of worry will feel Just like lying entrapped in mental bondage. Outward seeps the miasma, blanketing all Vistas, giving deceptively impressions That it's permanent; but the spirit can be Called inviolate–providence reserves the Wherewithal to reverse misfortune, even Seeming permanence dissipates upon a Windfall meeting. A gust can blow away the Fog, and fate that was brutal soften by a Chance encounter with love, a smile from one who Never could have before so earnestly be Looked for: aided, unknowingly at first, by Soil unnoticed in richness, soul unnoticed In the depth of its kindness; friendship growing Into intimate bond, and care the motive Dedication empowering a soul to Live with luster, take hold of fortitude to Walk a bit more assured with strengthened spirits. I was walking throughout intoxicating Clouds of blinding directionlessness, stumbling Really, crawling and crouched when light suffused the Cavern's blanket and for a moment brilliance Struck me; dazzling! A beacon overwhelming Me, refracting the wisps' illumination Into blindness unknown before: a vista Gleaming only a second, gone, but still the Landscape glows for a while, the load feels lighter, I can see a bit further out ahead, what's More I want to. Epiphany is what it Felt like, only the clarity was partial, Gradual, and at some times tidal, ebbing Back away from my sight; but ever since, a Spark has lit the enshrouding gloom from time to Time. I walk alongside you–likewise fearful, Just like me a confused itinerant here Walking deep in the promenade, in dreamlike Sight confounded in hazy nightmare logic: Journeying through a timeline painted bleary– Worlds encircled malaise and mist thick-curled on Paths that could be forgiven for their beauty Could the terror of fatalist projection Be dispelled, then one sees a field a garden. Man is merely a man though known as danger Or as boon; to the seer power's given: Cherish or to avoid accordingly, and For a lover a new cosmology–a Haven and a responsibility to Hope. To live as though heedless what the world may Be or what it is not; to know the path while Blind by heartfelt conviction; holding fast for My companion holds fast for me. And Love the Armor, compass, and star above gives guidance: Shining higher–impossibly beyond the Night's dimensions of doubt. It blazes there, though Seeming not for the world to touch, yet we are Touched by it. When I see your face I know that We are not in the moor among the vapors; This entrapment of senses, notions, thoughts that Seek to grind into dust the spirit, choking Fog laid thick upon life–it's so pervasive. Look! With you by my side my head's unbowed, your Hand in mine is the strength of breath unlabored! Here: unmoved and yet this is not the labyrinth Life has wrought–how the same conundrums fly from Us that once so imposing made us cower. Upper light, same as light within, makes plain the Path, the need to survive; the world I'm facing Clears and brightens with you and I embracing.
Often I stress about writing too little
Often I stress about writing too little, Thinking that quicksand slides downward below me; Pouting, despairing, I'm all too inured to Wasting the daylight, once spent or relinquished Plunges me into deep sorrow at day’s end. Time's but a resource. This lesson I struggle Daily to hold in clear thought; as the river Flows with no driver through beds with no need to Pilot its course, content, carving out channels Merely because it is, likewise must I be. Waters, like time, refill after they empty; Swells in a cycle; now full and then trickling. Dusk, though it settles, lifts into a sunrise After each night; and time seeping forever, On and on, newer days come to replenish It. So I try to not stress when it comes to Ebbing hours, here then gone, writing by moonlight Suits me as well, for time is and is not for Me to be master of: time's all around us, Always in flow without end. If the river Thought, it would not think, 'I dry out tomorrow, Better get pouring now.' Better to be like Water which rushes by nature without a Care for its final day–vigor it has so Vigor it uses. Ends never concern it. Rivers will run until emptying out: now Coursing, now slowing–no need to take heed of Whether its waters fall, if it cascades or Sleepily waters slide. Even if frozen Over the river just waits; it will thaw and, Just as if never stopped, wend once again its Way throughout earth. So let me be like water, Take some time out to not do and to feel that Life and my work flow on inside the moments; Pick it back up like no pause had been taken; Realize making, like being, is tidal: Life suffused with an art, paints of the mind can Flow upon all. In each moment creative Flexion's allowed its game; poetry lives in Life. To be sure of one's entity, feeling Surely without a need based in assurance; Flowing in time with small heed of it, flowing Lively because my work runs through my life; and Learning to pour from self, much like cascading Falls from themselves, and hone skill as though nature Fuses to climate: at once as serene as Brooks at another chance, torrents; in spite of Intermittent desire latently making, Crafting--not trying, just being this poet; This is called wei wu wei; this is the lesson Held within water. This teaching I try to Keep as reminder–life flows, and so likewise Flow my creation. I write, for the writing's Mine, it is me, and made one with this living.
A place for my poems 