from the mythic...

There are powerful currents

In this stream, as thoughts waken

The still tired slumber, and become lost

In a penumbra between wishes and acceptance.

Reality is a fatal compromise.

What of  the night train, the tides marked in grains

That makes the bed of the sea inside me.

A glyphic fantasy of movements

Trails of the nails dragged to hold

The welled spells of time (--) they burst

Like tears from the mythic, tears

That made the ancient deep rivers.

To now,  I know

The rivers of a woman’s eyes;

Deep as memory and beyond.

They are boundless as endless night

Deep as the need of two

To dissolve distance unto… one.

Cecil...

We imagine a King among beasts
we see regal majesty, a commanding
voice and stature; fills childhood
with myth and legend. We see
what we wish and wish so much
that we lose touch with a greater miracle-
the truth of a lion, sire and master
of a daunting harem, hunters and takers
surviving by benefit of thousands years
trials.

We must re-imagine, the plastic brown eyes
the fixed face and imaginary roar
the plastic teeth that look so real and men-acing
and the small man, whose pictured
near the proof of no-further -life; he comes home
to a family and wife to show his pride
that he slaughtered a Pride, paid a princely
ransom, to kill a King



_________
Seems a US dentist had a yearning to kill a magnificent male  lion and paid to shoot an arrow into a national treasure of Zimbabwe- a lion called Cecil. A protected tagged animal who was famous and adored as a symbol of efforts there to preserve the dwindling species.  I do not see the benefit in killing an animal for sport. It is not sport unless the animal has a chance to kill you. The dentist didn't sign up for that tour-- the one where you hunt with camera  or the other one where you hunt alone in the bush with a spear-- I could respect either choice-- but shooting a defenseless animal just for the thrill of killing it-- oh, someone must have mistreated this man as a boy...hdm

the old, old stars

Here, the last thought of you

soaks into a vision, warm air

comes heavy like wet fog

rising pungent earth, clinging to all

Giving the world a shape of dreams

Here, as softness in the inhale

Brings forgiveness to the sun and moon

For carrying on while my heart stays

lost, in the motile shadows that come

Full circle and inch to the west

As you stay so far, away in the east

There is no easy peace, the old, old stars

Confess Love and endure

Aflame in the emptiness, a defiance of reason

The heart lives its will; yes, and Love

The gift I give and keep, in a boundless

Space...is always in my eyes,

Here, they find the deep, slow rivers

Of your wide, dark eyes.

The night funnels the moon

Across wastrel waves to shore;

The last dark mast eases into horizon.

As I close away the beauty of night

raise a hidden light, a beacon

calling…you home

Inspired by: Aqui, te amo...by Pablo Neruda

of petals and the moon...

She was a rare and beautiful flower
translating powers of sun and change
into folds of delicate lines and spaces
as nature teaches itself a perfection of form.
Air transports sultry evidence
to those who taste upon wandering winds
and are drawn like the irresistible tug
to eye, and the senses of wanting.

Rare in the plenty of limitless things
beauty in a world defined by night stars
and day dreams, such are the ways
that the unthinkable occurs, and in its shadow
there is a more remarkable light.

If the ever-changing  constancy of the Moon
were all of the things I have given her to be,
then it would measure the small reach of mortal man
to find favored among precious things given,
but for the vast ignorance of a simple man-
as rich in imaginings as he is poor in time- she
would be a flower in  the near reach to heavens;
a rare and beautiful  creature of confluences,
a collage of untied moments.

So am I part of a story not of my invention,
but an intention of far greater things.
Merely, a blurred page in a history that fades
before it can be written, a passing episode;
holder of the brief candle
that somehow flames into a fullness of life.

a lyric just born

The wind reminds that tomorrow

Has not been written, it is the pause

At the end of the present breath, the wind

Carries on a journey, like droplets

lifted from the sea, water flowers and raise worms

near dawn and unto a silent Robin …

At dusk beneath the old pin oak,

I heard an unfamiliar call

Looked up to see an old red breast had a new song.

In the heart of evening, the power of the day

Formed thick cloud and I waited

For the winds to bring the change

To thunder and storm… I waited

Knowing the passion of rising clouds.

The windless stillness reminds that tomorrow

Has not been written, it is the pause

In a lyric just born, for the song

Of a new day; when the voice rises like warming sun

A new song of the spirit, new pieces

to fit a mosaic of time

As if we were needed for the Sun

To warm the earth…such imaginings

Borne on winds of wonder

Like the butterfly, we rise with moving air

travel where it will and taste the sweetness

Of many flowers—it is a world seemingly made for

fragile wings and ceaseless hungers, and the winds

leave pathways of scented honey.  

sweetness of a day

Was only a few weeks ago
that green branches drooped low, heavy
 with white, pink and deep dark
berries that keep the dove bellies dragging ground
that added a lilt to their mournful sounds at dawn
Already, gone  to seed and gone to need and
whimsical greed

I tasted mulberries  in the early summer rain
and again, and again I stained fingers and lips
coated my eager tongue with sweetness
and as I smeared the soft fruits while taking them
there was no loss
and in closed-eyed memory I'd see
the hills and narrow winding lanes
of the little town where I grew, watching
the Manhattan skyline from my window
and how we gathered beneath the great shaded awning
of mulberry trees on Railroad Avenue near the Pennsy overpass
and filled the air with laughter and sounds of delight

We exercised the right if all hungry creatures,
we feasted on the mulberries, celebrated
with joyful slurps and sounds,  a delightful simplicity--
the sweetness of a day.

momma's shadow...

 

She used all of her blessings just getting to work
and at day's end, she ran a huge deficit
getting back home again; somehow it was worth it to her,
to see her children and care for their needs.

Seeing their faces and a wet kiss were moments
that crowned her days in the kind of glory
for which she gave constant praise;
used all of her blessings and borrowed some
from the Angels in her life.

Such hardships were the tests
she eagerly embraced, for the taste
of her son's chocolate skin, the boyish grin
that presaged a dream for a handsome,
accomplished man. She turned her life
into a place to stand, no regard
to the soft sands beneath her feet
She poured the waters of her life bent  til her back was bowed
raising the ground to meet his steps, a steep climb
from the bottom of America...

She used all of her blessings
on the Paramus Bus, and the Hoboken transfer
and the snowy curves on Ratcliffe Road
in January, when her hungry kids waited long past dark
for the most welcome darkness,  Momma's shadow
over the dining table, where math became algebra
and classics became book reports, and the
life of learning took fuel from the sun of her heart

She used all of her blessings, the dividends of her faith
invested in the lives she loved more than her own,


and when my world revolved around her,
she was the only blessing... that I needed.

Quita...

the luxury of deep, dark eyes
never misspent as the world tilts in confusion,
and moments that stack in excess  come tumbling
into saner arrangements; they find marked time
as dark eyes combine with a spirit of inquiry
to test the day's knotty ties

I do not know why mocha brown
is skin so forgiving of bad light, crowds
and rushed brushes of acquaintance
but there is joy in tender beauty
even in the chance of passing glances
when dark eyes find...reasons to smile

fascinations

As if called by light,
I lift my eyes and watch
the moon divides the sky
into a moving pallet of mauve and gray
and within each patch
of nearby cotton and clay the light makes
a fantastic play of colors and seeming shades
prismed beams sing to me

Why can't she come out to stay
make the night her stage
the way I'd wish always to see her?
A thousand nuances on this single act
Beauty is like this, there is the moon-ness
 in a woman too. never the same
yet always true to the unique self

I simply learn to discover
that the thoughts that join
the thrills in my eyes
make a prose in infinite lines
both done and in wait, it is a welcomed fate
to love such fascinations, like
the moon.

my 32nd love poem

Of all the souls around us
the rivers know us best
some hold us in heart slow depths
and the moments that hold us
keep us like silt and unseen darkness

The flight of heady waters
remake our joy, when breath and frolic
decorate lips; the gentle kiss
of life, in smiles that begin somewhere within

When we are like the river
a purpose unto self
wrapped in our own arms of love
and welcoming to destined travelers.

You are filled by that knowing flow,
It crowds shorelines of your voice,
beats like distant drums of the heart
and glows like Moon upon water
a spell of many diamonds
as much as you can hold...
cup your hand and caress the skin,
lift palm wine for the world

to swim after dark

We spotted the fin of a great white shark
As it slowly cruised near the kelp and seals
Then decided not to swim after dark.

Twas not sheer fear, but a spine-chilling spark
We did not pretend, were back on our heels.
 We spotted the fin of a Great White Shark

An east borne wind became a warming ark,
We weighed the pain that sun-burned skin reveals
Then decided... not to swim after dark.

The first quick thrust turned and slanted the mark
The seal herd went still; as gulls wait for meals
We spotted the fin of a great white shark

 The grip of the moment was grim and stark
In silence, watched one of nature’s ordeals
Then decided. Not to swim after dark,

Not On a dare, or any foolish lark
To risk crossed-stardom on some viral reels.
We spotted the fin of a Great White Shark
Then decided not to swim... after dark.