a greater mountain

 

I could disguise the agony
beneath soft words and poetry
Speak of sudden dimmed candles
and wisps of smoke; how lives softly
In spirit drifted up, from the cruelty of this day,
and away into bliss.
It would  be wrong to do so,
these are not gentle passings.

They should have each been old and ready
to see the ends of faith, after long days, weary
after lives of love  given. They should have been
laid in soft beds surrounded by tears
At sad leavings even after so many years
Even after the four score and ten we have been promised…

They should have been old
and full of love, delicate  in fragile shells
Remembering the lovely days
in the old Charleston Church

Celebrating the ascension of their families
into greater abundance. Washed clean
in the blood of the lamb, ready
for awakening of the spirit
As the body tires and falls to rest…
They should have been nearly done
with troubles of the  world, and spent  from happiness
Ears echoing the joyful noise of praise.

They should have been
Spirits satisfied at journey’s end, welcome
My dear and faithful servants into the kingdom
They should have been here to read
This page, and hold us –safe and assured
Against a mountain of pain,
with a greater mountain of Faith.

Pardonnez moi s’il vous plaît

I am not fond of birds,
Although some indeed have charm.
A friend told a story about hers
“Il est Charlie”, charm that disarms
Even the casual gaze, his displays
Of song deeply amused
And one day a sparrow
Came close to its end, confused
By the language, bird to bird.

Not surprising really, for
It is the limitation of words.
Whether uttered by featherless men
Of hairless feathered friend
There is the difficulty
Where does the intention begin and end

Now as a child my Grandma had some birds
Heckle and Jeckle were their names
Not original but she loved them just the same
I don’t know all that happened but they
Perished in their cage, and since then
I have never wanted a caged bird.

But magnificent in flight
Osprey and Eagle, Hawk and Falcon
And even those I saw at night
Golden angels in the moonlight over the Caribbean Sea
I enjoy their bold freedom; they have no cages
And do not consort with sparrows except to feast.

But the Sparrow has a place in my heart
Was what my Mother used to sing about:
His eyes on the Sparrow, such a pure
Unflinching faith had she, and I can
Recall the feeling more than any part of memory
That her words were plain, were given sincerely
A paean to a God of Sparrows and crows,
Angels, doves and gulls, all reckoning
Of flying things, and to this day
When I see an anomalous feather
Floating nearby, I pause to wonder
Of that moment- Mother and her Sparrows,
And signs that follow Faith.

Ahh, I have digressed, but my friend would not mind
Nor Charlie, neither of my feelings about cages.
I was once in love, and came to know
The welcome side of cages; that sometimes,
it is the captive bird that gilds the cage.

an April moon

Swelled low, gliding in the east,  a glow
that swallows budding trees and spike-top spires
to redefine a man made forest adorned
by bare branched signs of spring.

I have seen you before but never
through the thoughts of this day
the seeds of doubt that fly full born
were not yet blossomed in that season last
you were the harbinger of a reluctant winter's end

I hear the same songs, and can clearly see
they too mean so much more, and time has this;
a way of showing the softened grip we have,
as we squeeze harder to hold each passing day

and you, golden chariot
of a high ride across night sky
of tomorrow you speak not, and it is well...
for you are enough, in beauty

to transform darkness into
fascination with a gem.

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

unveiled...

The night in flower, a carousel spin

around a view of eternity.

Ancient stars seem to dance

to a song played softly in my heart.

Puny man with music of the spheres within;

imagination creates itself,

a spark drawn from Infinity.

Such a flimsy mantle

for the greatness inside all

To stand and see beyond sight and sense

and reach into unveiled imaginings.

‘Neath the flowering night

I stand at the petal’s edge  

And reason a world long gone

Or yet to be

Such a delicate filament

for an inspired flame

when the moon asks...

The Japanese maple  

climbs the west bedroom wall,

and shimmered  leafy shadows  

vignette my wood-framed leap

at the Powell and Market trolley.

I release the effort needed to stop

A wandering thought that seeks

reclaim, a tense reluctantly past-

and not so much as a scene but a way to see-

filters the crawling light

through  prisms of happiness.

Soon, the neighbor’s yard globe

eclipses the glowing ball of dusk;

the evening meal enlists smiles

of shoulder to shoulder and stolen touches

in the kitchen of that quaint downtown loft.

Even the music has a way of yesterday

and I dance Argentine Tango

with a memory of you;

finding restless air and  a sense of peace

is somehow within it.

For the most unsettling sound

would be the exhale of seat cushions

and thoughts that I would never

find us once again, when

the moon asks to open our favorite wine.

A Pretense of an Ark

The Fourth World does not emerge,

it is filled with change and yet,

in essence, it stays the same

It is an endless rain of danger

and death impatiently awaits;

although it  arrives both early and late.

The Fourth World was not discovered

It was born full grown, from those who own

The means to kill easily and at will, fill

the unpaid bills of generations past; it remains

a dark evil that lasts past sunrise.

The Fourth World is not a hell-bent continent

But an archipelago of human pain, where endless strife

strains the sinews of life. Pausing barely for breath

It lurches and careens down a mountain like

Boulders falling in an avalanche, woe be unto…

The path is strewn and the wreckage can break

The hard heart of the world, yet withstands

Turn the head, avert the heart, close the purse

Build walls of forgiving news, fold it into a blur

Undisturbed- the peace is a momentary glance;

A random dance to music from a source unknown

It is day and the steady rhythm is a racing heartbeat

The flare of sirens feed reports of success

on a Wall Street news ribbon. For in the Fourth World,

There are few remaining tears, the past has dreary years

and tomorrow the forecast is easy to say, more like today.

When sunlight fills the air, clouds make pretense of an Ark,

birds swoop low, and from a clearest glow of day comes

the deepest gray…the sudden flash and thunder, and

suddenly un-breathable air fills the suddenly un-breathing.

_________________________________________________

Author's Note:

There is a Fourth World where war and conflict run rampant like virulent disease. It is in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Donetsk,  Central Africa, and Nigeria. Like a chain of islands surrounded by an unseen sea of utter turmoil, and they are connected by dreadful circumstance. It is up to the rest of us, the custodians of this planet- our lifeboat in the coldest Sea to do what must be done to bring the people of the Fourth World out of the grips of savagery. There have been heroic efforts and there have been instances of blind-eyed neglect. The fury of war is not a tame beast, it will always escape and find a new prey; it is the global human imperative, no one is safe from war until all are.

Shared in the morning

I left the music inside my head

on lips that simply tried,  it died;

The heart ached to find the lost…

I left the music inside my head

as my body danced across the light,

And even when my words took flight

they could not stray far away.

The heart is like a warm welcome nest

trying to hold on to all the rest of the joy

We shared in the morning

And then the music inside my head

Began to stir and swirl

Until the world seemed ready

And then the waters fall,

the comets flash,

And the moon was a ball of gold.

We found the music inside my head

And shared it like a precious bread

Divided but never diminished

Until every heart...was truly fed

By the music inside my head

and joy we shared in the morning.

moon ascending

Into the night,
up into the bright, glowing face
golden moon ascending
rising from jealous trees
that keep you from me and give
faint stars-remnants of even greater age-
a dim and temporary stage.

I feign surprise, that so many wiser men
have said this too, it is something
in you,  a trust, a sensed confidence...
a wish to share that impels thought-laden breath
to bare wit and heart

If only I could keep one petal
of this bright flower near, vagrant
darkness would disappear;
I would finally hear the magic
in sounds of moonlit notes, and fallen
crystal spines of life

burn...

 

Like watching the sun

from afar it is peaceful, the near star

shows its gentle fire, and it makes us

a world in which warmth is in the air

From afar a long line slowly moving cars

follows the path thru solemn gates

there the long snaking trail pauses

we wait for the further moments

We have been here before

played this scene in pain-filled dreams

and awakened to worse...

it is like watching the sun

bright warm light- so calm steady

but inside, a hellish burn of ages

where fire melts into fire

We stand the ritual way

and say words of comfort and will

that the awful spill of his life will matter

more tomorrow and tomorrow again

inside...we burn, and the fire

takes no rest, now we are

the heart fires of the star...we burn.

http://allpoetry.com/poem/11629657-burn...-by-Peteskid

around its gravity...

Seen into the unseen, and shaped in tones
that do not fade, life is a mere shade
of the light of a greater sun.

Once begun, it is a gift from an indelible giver'
and though we must only know in faith,
the signs take us straight
on an ever-winding path.

Within each, the light of an inner star
birthed into the cold, temporary touching
a passing world, we learn much
but acquire little that can be kept.

So much as we disagree, time slips
elagantly without excuse, we lose
as we gain...yet we Love.
We hold in orbits around its gravity
a mass that pulls the willing, it is
Love that makes a purpose of life

We love the children, the joy we know,
unfolding seeds of the great tree of humanity
they all belong to all of us
and so they are precious... and so
they are Michael

cosmic implication

When love seeps in,
in powers like air into skin,
every equation of human reckoning
changes...a constant
with cosmic implication.

Intrinsic as breath, subtle and hidden
as a state of  trance, yet the heart dances
to rhythms of another drum, resonates
to the thrum of other strings
when love seeps in... and it christens the world.

As if the wet kiss of clouds to earth,
touching all things, an equality of grace;
you are the dew on morning rose.
When love seeps in, it enfolds the world
and then I see the sun...and the glistened rose

teacups...

in my teacup...
finding long lost words
sounds of falling rain



raised teacup
wisps of steam

pausing at the lip

words I wished
into your eyes


at the table...
a mute conversation
breath in a teacup

my evening teacup...
stirring in the sweetness
soft cicada song



* three  hokku and  one tanka*

lesser stars

When we love, a seed deep within
begins to blossom, we reach for
a warmer Sun; we grow
in ways we could not otherwise do.
It is the beauty of love, and it rises into life.

When I see the rain of my care
and she becomes a flower in the desert;
a blossom in defiance of pitiless sands
a rebellion upon the waterless earth
a power to be where nothing else might

We hold a  blessing of time
before the fall into night;
it is as the power of tides
upon the greatness of the seas.
It cannot not lift weight of a world
but it changes the face that holds
a thousand pieces of the moon
and the fall of lesser stars.

songbird

Amidst a sudden storm, in pause of wonder,

as lightning fades to soft echoes of thunder,

I hear the wind-filled trees in rustled whispers
through morning fog, the cawing crow call lingers

Where does the honeyed voice of love belong,

and does the silken songbird love the song?

Or does she rise to simply set it free...

As inner fires find bright melody

the final spark of want ignites to light

a moment, which spreads velvet wings to flight.

A deeper spirit bond won’t let her be,

But I think aloud...she is just like me;

A restless silence that could never stay,

 a searching heart that would never obey.

the sparrow and the fishes

There was celebration, in usually quiet congregation

hand-clapping thundered, and rose to rafters.

Bits and chips of leaded paint fell,

like confetti, or moments of immense sincerity,

and Walmart said Amen!

The God of Lesser Corporations,

HIS children reborn, artificial bodies filled-

Transfiguration, spirit to cash-mere flesh,

with life and blood more real than menstruation.

In gloried Halls like Valhalla

rituals profound as Jehovah's, witness to

an awakening, the freedom to be

life and breath entities, by a Godly Court

a decree of  life from ink and paper.

The Spirit of God

moved upon the face of  articles of incorporation

let there be life...

and Walmart said Amen!

Wither the woman, vessel of saints and saviours

your choice to live in an era of manly–men.

Virtue can corrupt the Judges, when measured

by faith in penises. Cast wide the net

and capture every offending fish

for they have thoughts of freedom

choice a voice which interferes
 with the dearer freedom,

the favorite of the law, and only God saw

the sparrows and the fishes

 For the sparrow wanteth not and

 like the fish, thrive in floods of love,

thrash and run in tides of caring,

gathering scraps and pieces of life
 into loving existence.

They boldly hold... 

“there shall be no more waterless sky nor airless water”!

The manly-men scoff, for in sound petition
hallelujahs rise among them, called for Profits

They bare knives and forks for feast and care not
for drought or things beneath the waters.

They know, choice is on the wing of the sparrow

and in the wish of the multiplied fish,

and Walmart said Amen!

_______________________________________

The U.S Supreme Court has ruled (Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby) that for-profit corporations can have religious beliefs; and  which beliefs can excuse them from obeying the laws that apply to them.  While the ruling purports to limit itself to reproductive rights, it does not. This ruling has changed the law into a place where wealth and privilege now have powers to dictate a selective assortment of behaviour controls and morals. In effect it extends and ratifies private efforts to control American citizens.

blue notes for old red stars

In deep sky a trance unfolds,
a dance of ancient light;
tomorrow's rains gather
to cloak the portal to mystery
so much as in life, they do not stay.

Patient lights of an endless reach
teach me again, how delicate and small
is this form of man, how God-like the gift
of imagining.

Creation in  Six sharp notes
rest on the Seventh
as a cascade of creations
seize the front of the mind,
make blue notes for old red stars.

Making the world I would see
through eyes closed  in peace
where All value the need to bring
closeness to purpose- and know
the purpose of life, is abundant life.

Deep in the night, I cut away
the clouds that pass between
things we see and that which can be...
it is a time to swirl with galaxies unborn
and consider the virtue of a wistful tear.

lingers past dawn

In a space that might let slip 
the wisp of an angel's wing
or a moment so mercurial
it passes like a taste on  tongue
You come like the portal of a dream

Inviting as a flower on the wind-
a night scent that lingers past dawn-
the haunting that only plies in memory,
where play wishes we might have made.

You, in a reach for happiness
inspired by the nearness of breath,
are a touch of fingertips and brush of lips
and a rush of feelings that crowd  into escape,
 sounds that steal breath,
and reveal beyond words,
a meaning of loving You.

softness of words

We need not celebrate the self,

but find that it has a wondrous dimension,

to create, and recreate- become a feeling,

a consciousness immersed in something of itself.

It is as close as we can come to touching, 

when we agree to be within a feeling...

We cease to be an insular entity

when the inner creativity, builds 

a fortress  comes from a bubble of air

We stand, as thought beings

woman and man but far less than

the rift between seen and unseen.

No need of any other sense to know

the wanting turns to stillness,

the ache finds its balm, and in

the depths of wonder, there is wonder still

of the reach of some dearest eyes

The spirit vines like life to sun

lifted on wings define the winds;

 float upon the softness of words

that stay and fold into memory, that we

were just...this way

delta of a smile

I softly sang to you  

and gently washed your hair

filled the air with warm whispers

and closed your eyes with touches

of soft wet lips to skin

and each water rope and braid 

became a wish...to stay, this way

I pause to take in the reflection

of things we try to say, the calm wonder

that beauty within rises to the skin

and I watch and merge into the spray

listen to falling flow as if a summer rain

and my fingertips wander, and mind follows

across curve of chin into the delta of a smile

where a seed of love...has taken root