Sometimes

Sometimes
I glance out the window of my mind and see
Poetry
Love
Beauty
Tears

55: Days and Nights

(Written 14 December 2012. Time to publish.)

There are days
I can’t see it coming,
Days of laughter and smiles.

There are nights
I wonder why it’s taking so long,
Nights of tight-clenched teeth and hushed arguments.

And the times in between
I just don’t know what’s happening.
Maybe nothing. Maybe that’s why it needs to end.

But what if I’m wrong?

* * * * *
FFF-55 Vol. XLVIII.

Haiku: Childhood Memory

Pole in hand, I walk
The trail, clunking along with
My dad's tacklebox

Untitled Nonsense

Love is a many-fendered thing
With red shoes and a fro
A splendid fish up-ends itself
With drywall screws to sow.

It rides along the jeweled street
And pulls a wagon train
Tomatoes laugh as it goes by
And revel in the rain.

A jolly driver ho-ho-hos
As little children wail
He stepped his fat ass off the thing
And landed on my tail.

"Good day for nonsense!" he loudly cried,
"And scanning lettered stamps."
I never heard his paper crays
Nor sliver'd to his lamp.

May 2nd, 2006

55: Heartstrings

Years of rigging

Fill up this chamber

Ropes and pulleys and anchors

Cables and swivels and hooks

Turnbuckles and swage sleeves and fiddle blocks

All connected to a central cardioid apparatus

That allow each operator

Large and small, young and old, begrudged and limerenced

To pull and twist and manipulate

The strings of my heart.

* * * * *

FFF-55 Vol. LIII. Tell a story in exactly 55 words. Go see G-Man.

Youth

In the distance
Water breaks on rocks
And fills a pool
To flow beneath pine boughs and branches
And alongside a gypsum path
To end in the ever-flowing Rouge.

I sit on a bench of stone
Hewn as if for a temple garden
Meant for the worshipers of Athena.
For all I know, this stone slab is just that ancient
And may once have been hauled from a quarry
On the backs of conquered slaves.

Beneath my feet, a path
On which have walked many great minds.
I am surrounded by architecture and forest,
An amalgam of beauty which has inspired
Wonder and beauty

And which now serves as a hearty reminder that I
Like a conquered slave
Am in the daily practice
Of carrying on my back stones cut from quarry
To be hewn into wondrous and beautiful wealth
For my Masters.

And like falling water,
I let my dreams flow away,
And take comfort in their passage
Beneath pine boughs and branches
And beside gypsum paths
On which walk the young and passionate
Who, perhaps, take some inspiration
From the sound of my own youth
As it breaks on the rocks behind them.

Haiku: Talent

Oh, things I could do
(If only you would let me)
To give you pleasure!

Haiku: Confidence

Confidence is so
Elusive when you always
Fall short of your goals.

Haiku: Postcard

I missed the deadline,
You can fail me for the week.
Nevertheless, here:

1.
Pretty postcards show
What fun things I've been doing
Because you ar'n't here.

2.
The last thing she sent:
A postcard from Hawaii.
Then she disappeared.

3.
"With all of my heart:"
The last words she wrote before
She left forever.

Haiku: Freestyle

A trifecta:

1.
Going where I please
Is the finest way to hike.
To hell with the map!

2.
Creativity:
Coloring outside the lines
Lets out the passion.

3.
Freestyling full speed,
Throwing all the rules aside.
Why? DISCOVERY.

Haiku: Drift

Sunlight falls, driving
The sparkling colours from the
Dewey leaves and grass.

Me and my lover
Standing on the dock above
The drifting duckweed.

We hold each other
As the world turns around us
Knowing well our ends.

"Just a chapter,"
I say to her wistful eyes,
"In your life story."

Haiku: Fire

Seeming sanity
Fools my peers, but floats above
A bed of embers.

Those deep-seated thoughts
That drive my burning fury
are purifying.

"Can't do it again,"
She said as she struck the match
And set me aflame.

Haiku: Landscape

Red and yellow leaves
Signal a return to school:
Landscape of children.

Snow falls and covers
Everything. Landscape of white,
Perfect for snowmen.

New buds break open
To decorate the landscape.
Spring awakens us.

Wind sweeps through treetops
And brings a pleasant green warmth
Across the landscape.

Haiku: Spring

Orion slips down,

Now below the horizon,

While Leo rises.

Trees stretch t'ward sunlight.

Branches sprout bud and flower,

Shed their winter grey.

The softening wind

Reassures our numbed senses

That winter is over.

* * * * *

Haiku: Conversation

Our eyes meet. Silent

Words pass between us. We need

No conversation.
* * * * *

Haiku: Annoyance

Lying in the grass
Gazing up at starlight. Then--
Oh no, mosquitos!
* * * * *
You know, that blog?

Haiku: Happiness

Sunlight, morning dew,
Warbler sings the day's first song,
Spring flowers break ground.
* * * * *
(Late addition:)

Eudomonia:
Aristotelianist
word for HAPPINESS.

A new venture for me: Sensational Haiku Wednesdays!

Bibliophilia

Closing the book, I wipe away tears. My new acquaintance, Markus Zusak, has again brought me to such a state of reflectance. Such beauty in my hands, such tragedy. Such truth.

But I am alone in this houseful of people. There are none else who share this love. Not here.

T.S. Elliot and Emily Dickenson sit beside me, offering such treasures that no one else seems to recognize.

I am both enraged and ashamed. I am dumbstruck.

Poe sits above me and tempts my imagination, but I am the only one with enough patience to enjoy such a fine and delicious treat.

Milosz makes frames for my emotions. Dahl sits down to share an evil laugh. Hawthorne engages me in the finest depths of guilt. Buck reminds me what is just and good. Both Lewis and Carrol will walk with me along their separate paths. Homer and Virgil and Melville too, though most nights are usually too short to enjoy their company. Bradbury, Flaubert, Silverstein...when will there be enough time?

Figures crowd the room around my shelves, and only I can see. They smile silently at me, each knowing too well that part of my soul they alone have touched and spoken to. I carry them always with and within me, for the lessons and tools they have given have made me strong and rich.

Oh, how I am loathe to let those others be content without these gifts. But their time will come. They will find their way.

Or they will never truly know me.

reality

20 February 2006

to fuck
is to feel.
to rend the delicate fabric of gentleness
is to need
to shatter the innocence of naivete
to crush the hand of generosity
to pull the fragrant hair of beauty
to scream in the face of piety
is to LIVE

A life without beauty is only half lived.

To live--
Within that fabric of gentleness
Innocent and naive
Extending the generous hand
Inhaling the scent of beauty
Striving to understand God

is to LOVE

Winter

6 March 2011

Walking through the frigid air
The wind passes over me
Like your disdain.
I lift my feet as high as I'm able
In heavy boots
But the snow is much too deep
To clear
Without leaving some regrettable act
Behind.

Still, I push on.

Every step takes me further
From a truth we both know
All know
Every day I'm another mile away
Every inch is an eternity I'll have to retrace
When it all comes pouring out.
Why was I ever walking this way
To begin with?

Into the ever cold night
Writing letters I'll never send
Because those feelings are too hot
For soft hearts to bear
Those words too sharp
They rend and tear
Gentle emotional flesh
Tender spiritual mesh.

No, these words I will hold within.

There they still burn, still tear
But only one person
The wrong person?
But isn't it right to carry this weight?
For you, for them, for everyone
To see?

But who is doing their best, for me?
Who will be their best

For me?