BERNIE AND THE BIRD

The star, suddenly along for the ride,
a tiny sparrow filled the biggest stage;
as crowd and throaty laughter rose to tide,
a tiny sparrow filled the biggest stage.
Thrilled like onlookers of every age,
His toothy grin, delighted and surprised,
the speaker beamed a satisfying pride;
A tiny sparrow filled the biggest stage.

love in the gusts

Swollen nubs on leafless branches
still quiver in the gusty chill
Spring rises within them, as if by will
and a deeper  reach for the sun

Above the snowless rooftops
the waving hair of bare brown limbs
sway on a breezy day and bright blue sky
deceives the eye with a glint of summer

As passing clouds hide the warming beams
one wraps more tightly and cold dispels the dream
but it is in the momentary pause before return
we understand how gentle the touch
of that fearsome burn, the star that loves us.

It touches soft, and invites green grasses
and daffodils and other shy captives of winter
to rise and be free. For a moment, it seems odd
we do not have a name like Mother or Dear Friend
are we so ungrateful, is the tether not so real
to be felt and seen?

There is a remedy, dearest nearest star
I will call you after the feeling you bring in spring
when the chill rises to skin and you kiss it away-
you are my distant lover this day, and in summer
we will talk again, about the winsome Moon and faithfulness,
and you, moving in...

gentle...

She was ever gentle in the awakening

As the sun rose across her cheeks

And stars quietly found sleep in her eyes

Turned to morning cheer.

She was ever gentle in the day,

As a glide of wind through a window by the sea

Sweetened the brine from far away days

And gave it a place to season a smile

When she spoke my name

It came from brightened shadows

And a beam of her favor found every coldness

In the room—she was ever gentle

In the day

For in the night she roared and her

Sounds spilled the never subtle overflow

 Of the woman within the night… and

She was ever gentle in the day.

Oddyssey...

 

Compared to the lift and soar
of days that echoed laughter,
life was a bitter summary-
a crush of collisions and fantasy
piled atop the other, mystery unraveled
into a conundrums of truth, a maze-like path
this straight line from birth!

Thought, a traveler beyond mere movement, advanced
without drag of distance; led ever onward
as light through the void endlessly streamed
until disappeared only to emerge
before a keener eye.

In lives lived long before I lived,
blood ran through my fingers;
harvests of greed and evil lust
taking the greatness of existence for fouled water.
It was just that way, for
I could no more make sweet water
than honeyed golden life.

It was given to me to abuse both
the nature of life and the gifts of nature;
all roiled into the nature of a man
made of nothing but love
from a predecessor unknown and unknowable,
un-thanked, and not kissed in love and gratitude.

Hell is of the aware and hopeless,
when hope is the breath of life, and life
is the place near God.

Caught in a precis of a dream
I disbelieve the words, uttered with intention,
a dimension of mistrust, I must use
less sense than intuitions to discern
the meaning of meanings.

I lurch to grab the last piece of land
there is nothing beneath the place I stand
at the craggy cliffs of an abysmal shore
I lurch to grab the last piece of land
lost of place and time, in a dissolving core
feeling the swoon of Earth once more
I lurch to grab the last piece of land
there is nothing beneath the place I stand

Awakened, thrust into a place where regrets
abet the Sun and the glow of heaven
lights the stain of unmet words.
My lost promises and sacred vows trampled underfoot
in the hurry and scurry of long forgotten
and empty imperatives.
I suffered blindness of the busy, busy man,
abandoned those who loved so dearly;
held as a babe, adored like the truth of green spring
and savored like the flavors of Moonlight.

I remember the soft cheek I cannot kiss again,
the copper tone of the sweetest lips
that poured honey into my ears
and understanding into my fertile mind.
It is the home I will forever seek, though long
since vanished from touch; it is a thing wanted so much,
a sadness that I gladly feel,
it cannot fade away, until the end of light.

a silent second

When you did not know
I would be watching,
and you had no idea that I
would ever see those moments
when your thoughts were far from me.
Your thoughts were filled by a room
of busy things and words, and your heart
took a silent second to your eyes.

When you did not know
I would see, the subtle curve
of your waist, leaning in, to
conversation that would matter less, later
and the slope of breasts to belt, in soft breaths
between sips, celebration and champagne
wet your smiling lips.

You had no thought of me and my steady gaze;
a photographer snapped you, looking away.
It brought you to me, so that I could enjoy
you, when you did not know, I could see, and smile
and love you so much more...

regret for Liberty

Imagine Liberty beneath the sea,

a daunting view of history; yet,
it was plain to those who foresaw

the predicted rise of the Atlantic thaw.

Her torch might only burn in glints of the sun,

in waterborne pollution, or dimly in
the craven rusts of a chemical-ed ocean;

 Oh! The great torch of Liberty
adorns cold-blood and mystery.

The warnings heeded by far too few, mindless

and those who slept genuinely knew, the sea grew

before the unbeliever’s too. Blindness

can be temporary or contrived,

for there were few if any that thrived  so much

as those whose Midas touch held black gold.

They grew not wise but simply bold, and

in legends that they retold, it was every one other

that stood in need of greater forgiveness—

but the deed has left us  with less, on a narrower strand,

dry land with deep  regret for Liberty,

lost and found ...beneath the sea.

caress a softer wind

I watched the sun splash and play

Rise up in joyful coronas and spray,

In the drips, the hardness of winter fades slowly away

It is only a moment in a welcomed warming day

But it seems so much more… as spirit rises to thank

The miracle that is always near, the star that loves us.

I stand in the gold and glow and know

there is the spring within that reaches out

to touch a beam, and caress a softer wind.

The eye leads the advance as falling waters

dance upon the snowless gray, and sidewalks

so ordinary raise heads like new green of the season

and we begin the slow shed of the little inward dread

of air too cool, and hints too cruel...now

the radiant sky has learned to paint an upturned smile.