Musings and Meanderings

Words of Light and Shadow

Words of light
float in my heart,
bubble up,
then pop, fade.

Sometimes I catch
the words' shadows
in my poems--
dark murmurs shared.

----

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Tagging Death: a Poem Beginning with a Line by Heather Christle

I know that death is a tower
standing in the middle of the town.

I could walk past its looming silence
with my head bowed, eyes averted,

but, instead, I wave a cheery hello,
paint a scrawl of bright yellow poetry

on its deepest-darkest-night walls,
on my way to work, to play, to rest;

for what's the point of avoiding
the inevitability of finality,

when you can use its existence,
its presence, metaphorical or literal,

to stay focused on living life
with as much intensity and passion

as you can while you still can?
My one-sided game of tag will

end someday, perhaps tomorrow.
Then again (Tag! You're it!), perhaps not.

----

A Song of Farewell

I stand in the falling mist
of a morning winter rain,
eyes closed, arms uplifted,
clothed in a year of words.

I sense the darkness of the sky,
the clouds stealthy-stepped
all about me, murmuring cold
dreams in my numbed ears.

I sense the drought-wan grass
beneath my bare feet drink
in desperation, even as it fights
the long sleep of winter's call.

I sense the word-heat in my hands,
escape and sink into the drops
of water in the air, on the ground,
as I breathe in slow and deep breaths.

I stand in the falling mist
of a morning winter rain,
and I sing the year, my muse,
my word-wrappings a farewell.

----

So, tomorrow I'll post my final, daily poem of the year: my 366th. (If I hadn't picked a leap year for my writing challenge, I'd be done now.) The day after that I plan to work with an established poet/teacher to prepare a book manuscript of my poetry. The new project will involve a lot of revising and pondering how poems work (and don't work) together in book format. It should be interesting.

Theirs, Someday

Rows, rows of pecan trees,
leafless, drought-twisted,
lean into the dust-wind,
marching off in all directions
until they reach fenced fields
of scrub and of untilled soil,
while I stare out the window
of a ranch house just outside
a small town that dwindles
with every passing year,
where the crow population
exceeds the human one,
where dust devils dance
every cold Sunday morning,
where dirt-crusted cotton
tufts twitch, flick, trapped
in the rolling tumble weeds
that bounce across the road
that pass the sand-blasted,
brick house with its dented
for sale sign leaning against
the paint-flaking steel fence,
and though there's a tough,
harsh sort of beauty here,
it's a part of Texas I'm glad
I only have to visit at times;
my evergreen, Maine soul
would curl up, dry, brown,
if this house were my home,
much like the huddled town,
dying a slow, stubborn death,
and on the steel fence two crows
sit together and stare at me;
I smile a grim smile, nod;
we all see the same future here.

----

Charades

I sit in a chair of cedar sticks
In a cold limestone cave carved
By a drought-dried waterfall,
As three shadowed women
Who I might, might not, know
stand in the dark cave entrance,
Facing me, silent and cloaked,
And shift-dance with fluid grace
From mimed charade to charade:
Deer silent-slipping through brush;
Mockingbirds whisper-winging past;
Salamanders soft-stepping below;
And though I recognize the depictions,
I too speak no words, make no sounds,
For silence rules in this place, on this day,
A silence I welcome, the women welcome:
A respite from the noise of post-modern life;
Our game of charades will end soon enough.

----

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

dreams of day life in the night

"all the more so,"
she breathes
in his left ear,
as he dreams
a leafy dream
of sun, water, warmth,
even as he lies
tangled in sheets,
in cotton blankets
on a still, cold
December night,
and though
his skin
is tanned,
not green,
a photosynthetic
urge for light
causes him
to stretch up
toward the skies
of the dreamland,
toward a light that
were he awake,
he would realize
is moonlight,
her light,
and the warmth
he feels
in his dream,
is the warmth
of her words,
tickling his earlobe
with her cold
yearning,
and, for a moment,
he wakes,
turns to look
into her pale eyes
and smiles
a smile of loss
that she shares;
he returns to sleep,
to dreams of day life,
and she holds him
until dawn arrives.

----

Your Continuing Tides

Even a dawn cup of tea
is subject to the moon's
gravitational power;
you observe the tide
turn-turning at midnight
in that last mixed drink;
you can feel her sway,
as you make your way
out of the quieting bar,
a few smiling waves,
carrying you to the street,
as the keys to your car
siren-sing in your hand,
and at the sedan's door,
you look up at the moon,
a blade paring the night,
and reach up to touch her,
to share your warmth;
you pull back, cut,
and watch the blood well
on each of the fingertips
of your now keyless hand;
the keys lie on the pavement,
silent, stark, dead metal;
you retrieve them,
pocket them,
pull out your phone,
and look at the moon blade,
as you nurse your fingers,
and thank her for the wounds,
for your continuing tides.

----

A Belated Birthday Wish

Merry post-Christmas to you,
if you happen to celebrate
the day selected to offset
a medieval European penchant
for pagan fertility festivals,
rather than attempting to point
to the indeterminable birth date
of the savior of all Christians
who believe in Original Sin
and who ought to make Easter
a far more important celebration,
with its emphasis on transcending
a tortured death, the death of all;
but death and resurrection aren't fun,
and fun is what most want on holidays;
so, I, a nontraditionally faithful man,
chose to take the day for what it is:
a day to spend time with family,
to think of others, to celebrate life,
and, of course, to wish Jesus a happy,
if inaccurate and very belated, birthday.

----

tenoumer crater

space bombardment, surprise.

fused rock, flash-ashed bone

earth scar, massive scale.

ancient empire, annihilation.

traveling remnants, diaspora.

seeded continent, rebirthed people

----