keeper of my heart

 

 

If the wind were a woman,
I would know her touch on my face
In kindness and she holds me
Away from the world, alone
With her; fulfilled by whispered truth
"The world needs you far less than I..."

If the night were my lover
I would stray far from sunrise
And dwell with ceaseless journeys
of moon and stars, I would relish
The sounds of her loving surrender
As I consume mysteries of darkness
how the garish noise and loud lights of
red stained lips and neon sights
let me step away, and into her quiet embrace

If time was my woman, paired in life
Caresser of all my dreams, keeper of my heart
I would never fear the coming end of things
for to know a moment, is to know
that every laugh and faceless tear
has brought me here; made whole in
the bosom of care. The spirit finds
Its place, there is time and love;
Time without want.



------------------------------------
Inspired by
Luis Omar Salinas- the great Chicago poet, whose words wrapped life in a many stages into wisdom. In rare depth and insightful understanding, he lead readers to share his culture and its transitions- he watched America grow, and for all its complexity, remain in spirit, the child of a very simple man.

unbridled path

I have grown distant from the sky,
from the inviting mysteries of faraway fires
the teeming night of the past that visits
fresh to the wondering eye and taunts
imagination for its difficult reality-
travelers from the time before
the world on which I stand.

It is the minutiae, the bacterium scale
of tedium that keeps a greatness at bay;
the way a puddle can keep the man from
a destined step, or the way a breeze can alter
a life-altering thought, and as a wisp of smoke
curls to reprise a precious memory.

All the world can seem a folly when
days begin and end in a circle with no particular gain
and the distant sky, even in memory, whispers;
it is waiting, holding my place
upon its unbridled path to forever.

only occurs in Spring

I know it is the angle of the Earth

The tilts of her chin as if she smiles

To her favored star

I know that the soils lie in cold wait

For the intensity of beams to spur

Tiny life onto greatness

I know…

Yet there is mystery and fantasy

The orb in a brighter blue gown

And how the moon plays a trick

Upon air and sea to mesmerize into forgetting

A return to used-to-be’s that

Never were; I know.

All the pale blue wonder

Sun-splashed hills turning green

The songs of gurgling streams

Enjoying a bounty of cold clear melt

And underground swelled by chill and freeze

Releases like a pent-up lover

Last seasons seeds need no more than

A few tender days, yes, I know

It is the land and air, and waters

And yet, I also cannot deny,

That I know

It is a part of me, a seed of hope, a rivulet

rising to a rush, the hunter’s lust in a rising trout,

a pile of noisy crisp leaves

gathered by the winds, and tapping, tapping

There is part of me yet-

That only occurs in Spring.

Against the Current

 

the deepest river flows
and from a vantage it seems so slow
that the change is barely perceived.
from the twig in the stream
watching the shore line, fade
like a dream we try to remember and hold
it is suddenly fresh, then old and
gone cold as a fire-less hearth;
cold like the night in unwanted loneliness
cold, like the spring rain on bare skin.
the deepest river
speeds away as we watch it yet stays
long enough to make us feel--
like a long sought kiss, one that we miss
before and after-- and the woman
borrows the deep river, and i find it,
in her wide dark eyes

Author Notes

inspired by Current  by Alan Soldofsky  . 

everywhere but here

I should be forgiven
like the shadow on the wall
i come because you glow within
and stay because i am called

when the light of sun or moon
washes over you, and i am there too
to see the moon and sun...more beautiful

I could find your eyes in the rainbow glows
over the Victoria Falls, could find your skin
where seas begin and end on every continent
i could find your smile in the opening of the clouds
when gray departs and golden meadows stand proud
I can find your kiss in the dreams i left behind
the missing tastes of honey that linger in my mind
you are always there and so completely dear
as fond as breath and beyond compare
i can find you everywhere, everywhere but here.

Speak to me like the voice of the rain
you glisten in the morning like gifts of mists
and when the heat of day falls dark again
every star listens and lifts a tender wish

if i could find a memory in the flower's fold
the scent of an evening long gone bye
drift to timeless place, nothing grows old
the thought of you would lift my eyes
slightly above the petal's edge...and more beautiful


I could find your eyes in the rainbow glows
over the Victoria Falls, could find your skin
where seas begin and end on every continent
i could find your smile in the opening of the clouds
when gray departs and golden meadows stand proud
I can find your kiss in the dreams i left behind
the missing tastes of honey that linger in my mind
you are always there and so completely dear
as fond as breath and beyond compare
i can find you everywhere, everywhere but here
i can find you everywhere, everywhere.... but here

I wake up in the morning and the dew drops form a tear...
I can find you anywhere, and everywhere...but here

Beauty

Unquiet heart, restless and reaching

And Beauty is a shadow round the next corner

Just beyond sight, and so tantalizing

And in the night, fitful sleep and pungent dreams

Replaying scenes and rehearsing wishes

A whisper meant for an ear, falls into air

I would rearrange the world’s geography

Shake the silly stalk of politics

and disfigure powers to achieve

the constant touch of shoulder to hip

while walking beneath the same piece of sun.

Then disarm the guardians of time

to keep a night of honeysuckle breezes

with the moon, passing clouds

and Beauty.

our better Angels

 In America the promise of equality

Has shone like a beacon over  a raging sea

An assurance that after the storm

There was safety of welcome shores

In America, the promise of equality

Was never granted in sincerity

But as an illusion amidst a fog

A device of greater necessity

From the few to the many.

In America, the promise of equality

Was a wish before dawn

A prayer unto the bleak darkness

That there could be none worse,

And therefore- our better Angels...

But in America, the promise of equality

Breathed life unto itself

From the possibilities of prayer

And steadfastness of faith, it grew

A precious seed in vagrant strands

The land somehow yielded fruit

Made joy from a bitter whole cloth

Of rags and riches

In America, the promise of equality

Is a fantasy of life before the great leveling

Of every human’s fate; a child

Of a union of hope and change

In America, the promise of equality

Is in the balance, lifted by the wisp

Of unseen wings