Blue Sky
The early sunlight nearly sparkles off of
The white gleaming jet as it climbs steadily
Against the pale blue Carolina sky
I hear and feel the power of its engines
As it groans beating gravity on its rise
Each passenger belted anticipating a destination
The boy in the fifth row thinking of baseball
A women looking next to her making sure that her
Child is not as nervous as she is
The man back in 19D knowing his trip was a waste
Wondering when the pilot had his last drink
Each with a story
Each coming or going known to them
Someone they've left or are traveling to
He had helped her place her bag in the overhead
Would she talk to him as they leveled out
The houses and trees began to flatten and lose their depths
As the plane swiftly ascended over 4,000 feet
It was heading away
It was heading towards
In your life, do I just become a dot in the distance?
Rope Revisited
I'm usually sure when I finish a poem that I've done the best that I can do. This image has stayed with me longer than most and I'm still not sure if I've done it justice. Like Hopkins and others I have had a late life conversion. Unlike Hopkins and others I don't possess their towering talents, but that's never stopped me before. So, here are some changes to my first attempt. As I revise and, hopefully, improve on this image I will post upgrades. Thanks for any indulgences (bad pun intended).
Strands
Starting with spinning atoms at centrifugal force
In molecules making up cells upon cells
Amino acids linking one to another
The double helix is a spun ladder fusing DNA
One twisted pair piled on the next
Strands of cells weaving in and out of each other
To lives of lives
Each stand could break bringing the organism down
As it stays strong banding with others
Planning behind it
With God’s love and design
There are no coincidences
Me knowing he knowing she knowing me
Parents, spouses, kids, friends, co-workers...
Birth, communion, first kiss, sip of life, taste of death,
Heartbreak, love, passion, loss, anger, joy, delight,
Loneliness, loans, houses, cars, churches...
Stuff and things
Feelings and objects
Strands making strings
Each string could break cutting off its event
But as we twine these strings together we build a life
Friendships, birthdays, anniversaries, reunions, companions,
Life relationships, bonds of marriage, commitments, loves, transubstantiation
A rope is but twine interlaced together to build the strong
Binds that bonds
Able to pull the weight of a life with all of its events
Behind it
Strong enough to hold ship to anchor
Strong enough to hold cell to cell
Strong enough to hold atom to atom
Each rope we weave ties us to others
This is not a chain forged in life
But strong ties that bind
As we layer and twist strand within strand
And tie string to string
Each thread provides us with choices and covenants
Like fingers interlaced in prayer
I know who has blended these strings for me
I know who has tied these knots that hold me up
I am happy with the rope that I own and Christ in my life
Rope 2
Early evening as the changes of fall approach
Warm days, cool nights, colored leaves, lawns greening
For the last time
Some deck chairs moving inside
Mist rising from the day heated asphalt hits the cool
Dropping air
Maybe a weather front?
I drift like the mist through the walls of the suburban houses
"So what did you learn in school today?"
"Not much."
"I'm not commenting on your cooking, I just don't like
Broccoli."
"And then he said something about the merger."
From table to table and house to house
Snatches of conversations
Building to that silent roar
No one walking the streets with no one on porches
A church meeting for preschoolers with empty seats
Between each parent
But a group standing together in the back
"So I said to him, if you don't want to be involved..."
"No I don't think that Sean should be kept home another
Year"
The individual stands of our lives meeting others
Our individual ropes building the cord of community
But the strands are not tight
And some only twist once and are gone
Yet there is co-mingling of the lives
Twisting in and out of each other
Individual stands are shared more than once
"There are no coincidences in life only plans"
"Yes, we are all going to visit your uncle this weekend"
But in the city...
As I drift through the buildings
There are people alone with each other
Eating in silence or watching for something
Others are in gathering places so that they are not by themselves
The din of a dinner where a waitress is working
Chatting up her people
Not for tips but for company
Slipping knotting each strand to another
Enough strong ties to anchor a ship
As this state is shored
Rope
Strands
Starting with spinning atoms at centrifugal force
In molecules making up cells upon cells
Strands of cells twisting
To lives of lives
Each stand could break bringing the organism down
As it stays strong banding with others
Me knowing he knowing she knowing me
Parents, spouses, kids, friends, co-workers...
Birth, communion, first kiss, sip of life, taste of death,
Heartbreak, love, passion, loss, anger, joy, delight,
Loneliness, loans, houses, cars, churches...
Stuff and things
Feelings and objects
Strands making strings
Each string could break cutting off its event
But as we twine these strings together we build a life
Friendships, birthdays, anniversaries, reunions, companions,
Life relationships, bonds of marriage, commitments, loves
A rope is but twine entwined together to build the strong
Bind that bonds
Able to pull the weight of a life with all of its events
Behind it
Strong enough to hold ship to anchor
Strong enough to hold cell to cell
Strong enough to hold atom to atom
Each rope we weave ties us to others
This is not a chain forged in life
But strong ties that bind
As we layer and twist strand within strand
And tie string to string
I am happy with the rope that I own
A Song for Poets
Sing
Sing with all of your voice
Until your throat is parched and ready to break
Whisper at the waves that break at your feet
And let the sea know that you'll continue
Until there is no more white water
Shout at the wind and let it blow your
Words
Back into your mouths
Let your sight sting with joy
As tree limbs crash down around your feet
Let the arched eyebrow of a lover look at you
Questioning
Your own soul melody mixing with your inner ear
It is something that wants you
Needs you
Like the milky way hurling away at billions of light years
As star stuff links you to all things
More space than solid
Crashing atoms with the self same force
Sing the spinning soul songs
A bird takes flight and rides the waves of the earth
Whispering is louder than shouting
And no pr is worth this weight
Write and feel at the end that you've pored all into its vessel
Worn out from the orgasm of the words
Sucked out to the sea of calm
Singing one last refrain
Done
Moving Day
The earth is moving on
At least the seasons are
I feel and taste the coolness of the late sunrise
I see the air
High above a vapor trail of an morning flight away
Some early yellow leaves litter the road
And blow away in the wake of my motorcycle
I'll need a jacket soon
Another fall of man?
The cicada din is less each day
I rejoice in this turn of a page
The story in the book will go on
I sing the song at the top of my voice
There will be yet a few more notes to add
The dance is not over
A few more steps another twirl
This is not yet the time for reflection
No mirror to hold up at the party
No harvesting of all the ideas
Just time to move on
And wear my jacket for awhile
The coat can still stay in the hall closet
Song for Some Miners
Morning was starless
Dark on the way to the mountain
The only light was from the headlights of my truck
The night sounds fade
I dress for work
Coveralls, gloves in our deep pockets, hard hats, lights,
Some safety gear
Why are there GPS chips in cell phones
But no locater on our helmets
I greet my brothers in darkness
I've lost an uncle and a brother
The mountain has claimed it's own
Its yawning mouth meets us with indifference
We ride L-shaped in low vehicles in and down
Steel and mesh surround us
Thousands of feet below the sunshine
Nothing grows down here but tunnels
As our machines chew their way through the rock to make
Walls
Not much light reflects off of the compressed remains
Of dinosaurs
Will we someday be fuel for another
Black chunks bringing light for the world
Heating up giant turbines
The constant din of
Metal munching machines grind through the
Eternal darkness
The lights on our helmets guide our way
Until we can return to the surface
We're no longer the stooped trolls of underworld
We stand up straight
And ride back out at the end of the shift
Into air, and light, and earth sounds
Until I can see the light shine in my wife's eyes
In the evening
Spake the Wind
The wind came whispering to me last night
Calling out my name
Huh? I answered slowly
Thinking I'd gone insane
It's time again, it spoke to me
To cut that hair on your head
Mom? I asked
Didn't you get called mam last night
Twice I did, yes
Isn't that enough for you
When you were young it was miss they asked
Well, yeah, but now I'm gray
And statesmen like
Are you still a gender bender
'Tis time to cut your mop and run
No, I think that I'll just grow a
Mustache
Mother, piano, and me
At the Piano by James Whistler
It was a much simpler time, isn't was always
Mother would play showing me the notes
Hearing them build into a song
The songs were all moral imperatives left from a previous time
All seemed black and white then
Before
Even my dress and my shoes resembled the black and white keys
We had recently returned from church where
Father had spoken on the power of God to condemn
If we did not repent from our sins
Everyone sang the hymns in black and white on the pages
All had shook his hand at the end of the service
And said what a great shepherd of the flock he was
God's word was surely within him
I was happy in Mother's company then
Before
That same hand that the sheep all shook
That
God who was within him
He used that hand, he entered me
My mother just played on
Those times
Before
When mother and I would play at the piano
When all the colors in the paint box were black and white
Are the times that I'd lost and that smile is gone
As well as the notes that she'd played
Dream #955
Before
I met
You
I only thought that you existed in my dream
A gauzy figure like boats out on the watery
Edge
Of the summer morning
Bobbing up and down on a single line of the
Horizon
Shifting in the morning's light
Scaled back and forth in the pale blue sky
As amorphous clouds changed shapes reflected in my eyes
Your reality is much better than the shapes that
Lived in my fuzzy head
I listen and hear your kind
Words
Washing over my once closed ears
Leading me to
Believe
Where once I only asked question after question
I see the strength in your pale eyes
And that conviction on your wet lips
I experience the more in your light laughter
And rise to the touch of your purposeful fingers
Stay a while and chat
Of things that matter to you as I hear from your
Mind
What may become important to me
Touch the space that is between us with in and with out
Pierce that light with your gaze
So that I may lead my self to understand
The ways of flight of the beginning of time and other creatures that crawl
Spend your time with me so that darkness does not
Come
Or share the darkness that does
But let's at least keep day as long as we can
Today
Blood & Billions
The thought was there
As sure as the egg was consummated
As sure as the seed was germinated
A bird flew down on the mound of slag
It landed on what it thought was a secure perch
But the bird was mindless in the way of chaos
Its perch was precariously pulled by gravity and
Forces the bird did not understand
The gray flat jagged used piece of slag
Slid
Hitting others as others hit others as others hit
The bird flew off
While the slag heap's side slid down crushing
Itself and surroundings
He knew that he was right
And after the blood of innocents
Who have done nothing but live there
Who have gone to serve there
Who have died the same death
And after the billions that have been sent there
And it's gone into profiteer's pockets
And it's built nothing but an edifice that drips blood
Draining the life of a country as sure as a vampire drains its victim
When do the trail of tears reach his ears
When will the cries of the lost reach his eyes
After the dance
After the dance
A single stag in a grove of pines dines on the late summer
Wild grass tops
His retreat is not
Before the moment in time can be set
A wolf attacks from behind
Ripping at his flanks
Chasing him into the waiting pack as he tries to leap
Forward
Two of the pack rip at his throat
As blood rushes out his eyes open wide in that look
The pack rips at his hide
And he dies
Food now for the victors
Food is one thing, blood and billions scores on
Another plane
When will this music of screams cease
Whose madness chews and claws at what mindless
Single thought
Pieces and peace are dichotomies of scale
Voices surely do carry
The voice on the other end of the phone
Was like knives to his soul
An alto-contrary
She use to sound like a concert heard in the distance
Drifting towards you on a summer's eve
She sounded like a screeching harpy
Ready to scratch his heart out and hand to someone
As desert
Her voice use to have hugs dancing from her lips
His baritone was just so much noise
Like a passing car with its base turned up so loud
That it was hard to understand anything but a boom, boom
And she wanted to turn out the lights
He use to use his voice as the melody that reached that
Spot
Where she just wanted to melt into him
His voice use to have hugs dancing from his lips
Each end of the phone towers were dripping with
Hate
Now the sound that was between them was so much
Discord
Where had the music gone?
When did it leave, and now all of the instruments between
Where broken
There would be no sounds of hugs from their cells
There would be no sound of joy
As each receiver was clicked shut
I'm glad that your voice is as sweet as honeysuckle on an early
Summer's night
Inviting me to drink deep
I hear the smile in the song in your voice breathing possibilities
My ears invite your tune
My thoughts dance to your musings
I feel welcome to listen as part of your world
Thanks & Musings
The poetry muse or fairy didn't visit last night or this morning, so I have nothing new in verse to add to the ether today. I want to take this time to thank all who visit and leave comments. You've been most kind of late to enjoy what I write. For years I've been my only audience and that's like one hand clapping. You know there's some noise, but you're never sure if it adds to anything. So thank you all. And I might add here thanks again to Billy Jones for providing this space and to Shirley Allard for providing me space in WordCatalyst.com. If you've not had the time to visit WordCatalyst then I would suggest that you do so. I would hope that if there is something that you read by my fingers and you do not like or think that I'm full of it, please let me know that as well.
And... This morning I opened my latest Kirpalu newsletter (it's a newsletter about yoga and meditative thought - a very good endeavor if I might add) and one of the lead stories is about Rumi. I laughed as hard as if I'd just read something by Bob Church. As the choice for the best selling poet in America, I would still wish we could look to ourselves. As the choice for meditative endeavors, he's as good as any, but there are others whom I've read that fill that bill as well. My favorite would be the Tibetan poet Trijang Rinpoche or even better still Lao Tse. However, here any of the three that leads you to peace is a good choice. In my humble opinion for shear lyrical power there are also many others, including: Keats, Yeats, Coleridge, Blake, Milton, the Bible, The Koran, Whitman, etc. Or as I've found, there are some great folks writing who contribute to this air space. Click around and discover the treasures that I've found. I will next week add links to my space here in the ether to them, including but not limited to: housemouse, JO, Bubba, darksoul, dermott, Billy, et al. If I've missed adding your name here, I'm sorry; however, as I've said, I will be adding links and keeping up with my "friends" so please let me know if you wish to be added, if I miss adding you. As once told to me, there are many paths to the edge of the cliff or to the field in the forest. It's always good to have a well seasoned guide.
So, if you've read this far, thanks again. If I can ever peek someone's interest in a great poet, then I feel as though I've added something to the general discussion. I know that I'm preaching a bit to the choir here, but if we all bring a little poetry to our worlds I feel as though the bigger world will be a bit better. And with so much noise in the general world, wouldn't a little lyricism be welcome?
For My Sister, Nancy
You were the princess of the known universe
Ponies, bows, the frilly dresses in the black & white photos
What a smile...
And I then I came along, even close onto your birthday
But you let me share the day
Even the cake, however your name always was bigger on the icing
But I never cared, it was cake after all
Then the other monkeys hard on after me
We three were a bundle of noise and activity
You were then our built in babysitter
Not your choice
You handled us with your usual teenage aplomb
You were kind enough to take me on the magic bus
To the mystical downtown
Where I could buy fantastic books of adventures far from home
You were the high school hero-sweetheart, a leader in the band
The dancer in the headdress with the feathered trail
It was allot to live up to
I never felt that I did and needed to set my own tone
We even later became partners of such and so
It got away from both of us, we traveled a far piece from our homes
The divide was wide for long while
And the bridges seemed rickety at first
But were steeled later to our surprise and delight
Your smile and laugh still lite the stars
And your words are as welcome as your presence
I'm better for you being here
And I know the road was rough for you
Daughters and husbands and lovers that were trials of fire
And pain
Always a question of doing and the path of how
The best you do is the best you can
There is no more, no less
The Eyes Have It
I drank deeply from the dream in your eyes
As I danced in a moonless night with your soul
The music played at the edge of our ears, soft and slow
Like a pale remembrance lost in a lake
I knew the tune once
On a still summer's night watching with weighted bliss
The dance lasted longer than the music
That night
We just kept pressing our selves to our souls
Neither led nor followed
Each understanding the other's silent steps
As our atoms spun in time
Electrons mingling fussing about space
As we toured the galaxies within
I drank deeply from the dream in your eyes
As we continued on to the tuneless dance
We drank deeply from the soul of ourselves
As we nourished each other from wells deep set
And weren't satisfied with just that single sip
Our thirsts seemed unquenchable as we held each other
Locked together in the dance
Waiting for a shadow of the sun to start burning
But hoping dawn would not arrive on the edge
Of our thoughts
Gravity pulling us towards the center of the other
Knowing for a short time
One another's cells
I drank deeply from the dream in your eyes
Until it was a dream no more
Dark & Stormy
"It was a dark and stormy night..."
"No it wasn't dear; it was daytime and we were on the that little coast in Spain. Don't you remember?" she said.
"As I was saying," he glared over the table at his wife of such a long time now. "As I was saying. It was mid-day in the bright Mediterranean sun. However, we could see the storm clouds gathering in the west. Which led to the dark and stormy night."
"Oh yes, I recall now. You had on the cute little skipper's cap that you wear sometimes. I just love it when he wears that nautical outfit of his." She smiled for all to see. As she moved her hand to her face for all to see her diamond bracelet.
"We had docked the yacht just hours before in port at Maroca. Anyway, if I may continue. The evening turned stormy with lightening..."
"Oh yes, the noise was horrendous and the lightening lit the sky like on our wedding night, dear. Do you remember?"
"Yes," he hissed impatiently. "Again, it was a dark and stormy night, when we had just settled. Ma in her kerchief and me in my cap."
"Oh now, they'll think that it's Christmas, dear. Honestly, sometimes he gets his stories mixed up."
"One more time, it was a dark and stormy night," he yelled for all to hear.
"Good line," said someone at the other end of the table of quests.
He silently spooned his soup and didn't say another word that evening.
Twilight In the Park
It was a muggy late summer's eve
When even the trees were tired of the summer heat
And were ready to change their green for colors
The white haired couple sat on the peeling bench
His hand covering hers as they chatted
A boy was having a catch with his mother
As the man gently pushed their daughter on the swing
Another father pushed his small child in the striped stroller
Along the hard dirt beaten path
He reached and touched her hand
And grasped it as she turned towards him
She didn't grasp back
But smiled as she tilted her head down
"Do you think that we'll be like them, someday?"
As the low hum of traffic passed somewhere by
"Which ones?"
"All of them, at one time or another"
She took in the park with one sweep of her eyes
"It would seem as though that would be nice"
He waited to ask the next question
That hung between them as thick as the air
Song for Robert Frost
I sing for the dichotomy of Robert Frost
The new englander born in San Francisco
Hard pressed as a young man to make a grade.
He walked the snowy woods listening
To apple blossoms bloom.
His fame yet gained o'er sea first made.
His stony stoicism tilled the hard ground
Of cold fields lined by rock walls
Making good neighbors laud his praise.
Tempered by his grace and wit
He sown his children before his time
On a road taken with success in learning.
Great teacher of our souls to sing,
What attics hide our worse fears of bones?
What button boxes keep our stories?
He tried to stay the course and point ourselves
And talk of how man does to women
With dirt to flower stains each their own.
He left his talking in his words,
Can't we hear what each is saying?
When others went west to find the answers
Robert saw the truth beneath the rocky soil
Of his beloved northeastern roots
Shine on this glint of understanding what
We are to each. Reach past the path and live a life
For though life is both toil and trouble
Celebrate not just its passing
But your time that comes as it does pass.
Another Reminder
I see your eyes reflected in the morning sky
As I sit on the porch
I see the golden glint of your hair reflected in the tanned grasses
Of coming fall
I hear your voice whispered in the breeze
And feel your soft touch in anxious winds
I look for you on the streets that are crowded with noise
You've disappeared into the shadows
That dance in my daydreams
I'm sorry that I can not longer hold you
I gave that right up
I sit and send wishes out through the open wound in the sky
Maybe one day I'll heal
May be one day I'll move along because there's nothing here
To see
Today's not that day
"Better to have loved and lost than ... "
There's another sunrise tomorrow
And maybe the sky will be overcast
To hide these colors striking my eyes
Like knives
Hawk
Remember when mail was free in unlocked open boxes?
Ack, here he goes again
A hawk, full-winged, tucked talons, eye staring, rides the thermals
Gliding pirouettes like a ballet dancer's leap mid-air split
Grabbing air and holding it until
The hawk call shreek to unnerve his prey
Staring at the ground for any movement, open eyed
The wide-eyed mouse twitches holding its own
Until the hawk scream
It darts for a hole in the ground
Tucked wings now falling through the air with no resistance
And the violence at the end of the fall
Last second talons grabbing prey wings grabbing air
The mouse's essence is released into the sky
With each powerful wing beat
The hawk has a snack and will soon search again
I wait to hear the wing/hoof beats and then it's too late
Bok antelope licks the water with ears to the air
When the herd darts off it wants to be in the middle and not the back
Ears stuck as high as they could go
The cheetah barely rippling muscles moves through the tall grasses
One cautious paw in front of the other
Bok heads jerk up nervous feet moving
Blur the races as the cheetah and Bok seem to be in mid-air
Front paws spread out claws extended in its leap to the back of the Bok
The cheetah tears the back haunches of the Bok
Blood flowing down the legs as the cheetah's mouth turns red
The Bok gives a last kick before its end
Violence or in their nature - the scorpion knows