Category: Poems

Rough highways
The interstate connection
Split at the edges
Worn out
Concrete, cold, hard and solid

Clocks tick
I’m surrounded by warm
thick air
And I sit here with this book

As far off as tomorrow is
the next moment,
When all of this will be forgotten,
The next movement in this
Orchestration of silence
Cancelled meetings, planes rerouted,
plans
Empty house and quiet, empty hands

I call you tiger
Monster
Money counting minister of
Good things
So you say

In my heart, you created a doubt
That anything had ever
Happened
I was flattened
by your faithful attention

Tuning in my television thought
I castigate you with flames to
Make your eyes aware
Of every heart’s detail

This is a dangerous thing we play
Harping on the tunes we most
Urgently know, like slow music
In the dark
Words from mouths, both meaningless and
Sinister

While the sun rises and runs in his courses,
Glorious

We too shall fly upon the
Marketplace to purchase softy wares
To give our heads their due
To make us feel too important
to give up just yet; so
give those sacred cows a kick
in the head and a “Get outta my
way you beasty beast. This here’s
our town, this here’s
our feast!”

For they may be sacred
cows, but we are scarred and scared
For how many cared that we are
sacred men?

Wings, wet with sorrow, fly
Not on the wind, not in the sky
Down in the glass, down on the rye
Wings, wet with sorrow fly

*From the Streetwriters prompt of the same name

Singing softly,
Swaying, playing
over and again
the staying song…
That certain kind of praying
Where your hands may do the saying
all day long:

Is this the simple reason for your song?

You dream of things I cannot comprehend
Stretching out the fingers of your hand,
the tendons strain to show themselves approved
The airy room is empty, solace moves
into the sound between the clouds
that overshadow afternoons
And then it ends

And all along,
Is this the simple meaning of your song?

Oozing borders bleed in the wash
life blood baby child
you let the music move you
in the dark, quiet amber, healing
A projection show but perfect
soft and slow not wicked
blue lights and pictures
manifold wants, desires
to be open, to be

Every lizard in the king’s palace
Every lizard in the king’s hand

I found the pure white stitches
are looking worthwhile
And the golden pages

This is a direct transfer
From heart + mind to
Paper, eyes
There are no feelings
All dreams and wishes
tarot cards,
No divination

You let the music move you
Now let you the music move

I am entering eternity
With all my insecurities
Intact
Like psychic shells,
As loaded questions
for the shotgun
strapped across my back

I submit my
grey imagination
to your liking
that of bringing light
of brightening
and of climbing high mountains
sailing low seas

As my hand appears to be
spinning a revelation
Yet my pen is fixed in its
place
Offering new reflection
in its revolution
the world keeps turning
surely God is listening

We are partners in this race, and
Although pain is
not being able to touch
those you love,
I will not fail to reach

I was so sure about everything
So that there was nothing left
Now, drifting purposefully on this
tabula rasa…
I will not wait.
I am entering eternity
with all my insecurities intact
I test the air
Unfold my wings
And lift

How beautiful is the rose in her glory
Who knows what a rose is,
a flower
How holy is the moment lived
Who knows of his death, the hour

The Star of David is his six-sided heart, is it not
But God has yet his sevenfold Spirit
I am speaking of things I do not know
These things too wonderful

Your analog greatness uninterrupted
Transparent, beautiful, high and alone
Your solid nature sits in stately stead,
to rule,
upon your glowing, stately throne
You rule, as a man rules his own heart, his soul

All things flow, homeward bound, and to freedom fly
Where the ancient boundaries hold
no more things for you to know than this:

Christ was kissed, then God our savior died

He lives again, and, for a time,
By campfire he reclined,
with fishermen he made his kin
before the waters wide

Smoke is the rhythm of the willow bloom
A man inspired, a woman thus endowed
With pipe and hearth in woody sitting room
They, keeping silent, both create a cloud

And so I’m told
The author touches
Clean paper
And wonders

And breathing smoke like dragon’s breath,
He smiles
at naked power, naked thunder,
Grins,
suddenly
remembering the flower
Smoke is the rhythm
of the willow bloom

Fading out,
Tertullian quieted his quill
“It doesn’t mean anything,”
he said
Ruffled feathers
Tired, sore-necked canvas of
sweat, draped in
defeat

Five times seven,
His name unspoken underneath the breath
of turkeys chased in the evening
Lower back screaming for help
from the decade of neglect
Resting in the front row

“What does it mean,”
she asked,
staring at the paper that cost them a good dinner
He shouted six words of silence
They stabbed at him
“Let’s go for a walk,”
she said
He stopped, slowly,
slowly,
secretly smiling
“Tell me you love me,”
she said
He signed his name and showered it with sand,
set down his stylus,
and stood
“It doesn’t mean anything, my love”