Beneath the whispers

Remember the moon
In the wintry night, colors vapor
As we speak; it seems
The air holds the words
The heat of breath and passion
In the closing space between us,
Remember; the moon
Paints the tile roof line
with an ermine cuff.
'Neath bright planets and dimmer stars
I can imagine
the ear of God, listening to their defiant songs.
Like love here with us
they burn  hot in the frigid cold.
Remember the moon
Above cloud, on skin, and beneath the whispers.

overtones

listening--
some moods rise like tides
pulled to obey the moon
and  attend the  constant beauty
of her changeling face 

it can be in the descant fills
between the meaningful lyrics and my memories
it's more than  ascendant major chords
the overtones and sure rhyme end --no,
it is the space it made
and left...with you

A Solitary Dream

Why Love?
When greed is so much easier,
and want is much less precise;
Need can fill a moment with pieces of the self.

Why Love, indeed-
when the salvation march is a single file
and faith is a table for one;
Life is a solitary dream.

So in the mirror we cannot stand mute
as vapors of pregnant breath
carry truths we cannot deny,
Why Love? For it overwhelms my life--
I watch as answers gather
in the wells of my eyes

an ancient curse

Don’t tie your precious freedom to a gun

It takes the rarest blessing shared by all

Human life - the wonder under the Sun.

When shared, life’s not a battle to be won

-together we rise, alone each must fall

Don’t tie your precious freedom to a gun

The bullet’s work done cannot be undone

It takes- unforgiving, breath’s final call

Human life - the wonder under the Sun

when armed, the weakling threatens everyone

 empowers evil to its dreadful haul

Don’t tie your precious freedom to a gun

Like ancient curses passed father to son

-the cult of killing calls in honey-ed drawl-

Human life - the wonder under the Sun.

 For love is never late nor over done

And life offers no guarantee or recall

Don’t tie your precious freedom to a gun

Human life’s the wonder under the Sun.

ever present chance

Laughter can flow and fall into air
seeming vapor and mists, in my mind's eye
it is a cascade among elegant cliffs and trees-
an already beautiful scene, made more beautiful.
Laughter gathers into mighty streams
and collects to grow and carve to sea
like deep rivers, it carries much along the way.

Tonight, I look into the eyes, across lives
and over generations; I see
the gifts of mother to child and child to
fresh springs of human spirit that
the world so badly needs.
For it is tears of time, that wets seeds
that sprout full-blown into possibility.
In boundless and deep forests it covers vast tracts,
 fills all emptiness, and make the ever present chance
that sweet breath inhaled  becomes
laughter on tireless wings.

a slow descent

Now is the time
to speak of love, not in a whisper
but  roars like the howl of storm and sea
like thunders in the belly of world
when Titans shift brawny shoulders
and the Earth groans

Now is the time
to raise voice and claim peace,
for it is not easy on the hardest day.

Now is the time when innocent ground
hungers, and dry leaves of the season
have nothing to give, it is the time
for the higher part of the heart
to sing a song in future tense;
when we can look back and see
a season of our hands raised in anger,
and a slow descent into reason.

woman song

a composition without effort
flowed from full red lips
rising above the drum brush
high-hat, downbeat and strings,
soft reeds combine, and her deep wide eyes close
as her curled black hair slides
across bare brown skin, shoulders
that have carried so much for so long
and her delicate back shimmies
to the movement she has made.
I revive moments of joy and sadness
in the pauses of her soft inhales

the corridor showed signs of wear
and the incomplete blessing of skills,
repairs that smoothed away a slow torture of time
The old carpet seemed new
in the wet residue of a woman's effort
rub, clean shampoo, rub clean
and the sinews of her neck express
the giving from her inner form, she pants
low and slow; unbends the back
stiff and tired, her spirit reports, a call
from every aching part...smiling
as the guests pass by so carefree so
un-seeing, as she moans soft...bends again

In the corner room, laughter brings
signs of spring and hints of gathers
before sweet rain; transforms the sultry
heat of late August amid stirrings
 an ancient city in celebration
for the crisis points of an infant nation
all flow, across balcony doors. A window
on a world in flux.
From the deep smile beneath
her deeper furrowed brow the weight
that slips past her sensitive lips
and rises to the walls and floats down the hall
and begins again when skin denied for so long
rediscovers the genesis of woman song.

The sweetness of life, rustled on sheets
the needs of the moment past flowed to the blossom
of a wish...now filled, and another
and she is like the gentle breeze through linens,
she bends like tips of trees. gently 
whispers grow to rush and hush,
in counterpoint to her breathy rhythm
as love holds her close, in the velveteen air.

the rainy eyes

 

only nine...and the bare white walls
and beeping machines make a strange lullaby
when sleep is for healing, and healing comes like a dream
and the busy doorway
brings strange eyes with deep frowns
and the wonderful smile
of Mom and Dad, friends and their
Moms and Dads.
The things they found make them frown
the brain, and it brings the rainy eyes...
but when nine, storms pass quickly,
the frown cannot linger and
every chance to find a moment of joy- is like
her infectious smile in this antiseptic place; it is
simply...irresistible.

a bittersweet joy

As if from beneath my pillow
to know a seed reaches for its glow
from warming thoughts and gathers
a will to be... uncurled within a shadow
of an inner light and loving
it sheds darkness

Bursts a world bathed in flavors of stars,
beneath a bared luminescence, suckles nurture
from passion touch; as the moon
translates emptiness into a patient wait.

The soft winds of urgent breath rises;
it swells the envelope of night
into a womb for dearest gestation.
Its needy fate turns the palms upward
a cup to be filled by a day of love,
and in bittersweet joy we realize,
it is all that we can hold...

a moment of love

Had the Rose
a reach for greater beauty
or had a dream sought a greater vessel
than the ship of the spirit
in dark and passing night
they  would occasion
a rush of vanity
and sins of excess.

In the eyes of lover,
beyond the fires of passion
and the moon-sparkled web
of yesterdays weaving into tomorrow,
there is only selfish lust
of an invisible man,

as when shadows pretend life
and the sun soaks into artifice.

Time is a test of many things
but it cannot contain
the value of a moment of love
nor its boundless spark of hope.

Sakura

In the soft Spring breeze

A flurry of pink and white, like snow

Tickling storms fill a still young season

As blossoms invite, and touch the world

Of sight and sense

Breezes of lightened air, dressed heavy with scent

day in blossom, and it fills every thing

with the wonder of nascence.

As if tiny notes on strings of air

Petals make music felt at heart

And every sinew reaches for tenderness

To gather the warm sun, waterous air

And ride the rising tide of life;

to mate the inner desire

And the outward touch as they unfold

And bare to every occurrence of moving air

Blossoms seek as flowers need

The reckoning of an inner seed, a wish

To be like all things that reach to the sky

Translating a cloud

Words on a pillow

Find a language

In need of no translation

Like the timbre of a song

Notes connect the hearer, and in the heard

Can linger, like the fragrance of a rose

On the hand that bends the petal close

Words find the heart within the heart, and pierce

like sunlight through the shell of a seed

Bold messengers faithful to the lips

and bring the spark behind the eyes

to glow, and rise with tender breaths

Words, near splayed hair, and cool linen,

on a pillow as welcome as an oasis,

and as soft as a dream, in warming words

a pillow becomes a cloud

just this way

Dancing through my day

Moving as only you may’

cutting off the words I might say

As my eyes take in your glances

Your gentle sway entrances

As you dance through my dreams

Wide awake and you are there it seems

All the world fades into gray

As you alone, dance through my day

What if all the world’s a play

And its poor players fade away

This moment has arrived, to say

I hope you will stay… just this way

Dancing through my day,  taking my chance

like sun and clouds at play, in wide expanse

as time wanders and thoughts drift down stream

and the red sun deepens into a radiant beam

you speak words that I could only  pray

in this Dream, dancing through my day

a flower in spring

There is a mystery to love
denied unto hatred, which proceeds
from the lack of care.
it is the the bounty and wonder of the sea
reduced to the fill of a dime-store saucer
so diminshed is the life given to hatred.

it is real so much as love is ephemeral
hatred is a brick bound in mortar
within an impassable wall
but it is beause of its solid strength
its ground in the real world
that it fails the eternal tests

hatred passes away, it dies with
the infected lives, it goes to feed
uncaring worms, and it returns
as a flower in spring, a thing
like few others
that inspires Love.

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

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.

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

You speak to me in the voice of the rain
and glisten in the morning like gifts of mists
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've 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.

At wake, the morning dew holds the brink of a tear...
I can find you anywhere, and everywhere...but here

simply, more of you

Somewhere there is Christmas

Remembering a birth of hope

And the feelings of a fortunate childhood

revive and kindle as if a fresh breath

has met the rise of a slumbered hearth.

Somewhere there is gentle snow

falling to fill a season’s reasons.

Joy in the soft flutter of white

as unseen winds make evidence.

Falling and rising, a vision of home

and memories of happiness.

Somewhere there are soft eyes

that watch the slow road home;

With hope for change and a wish

For a familiar shadow at the door,

When more means simply, more of you…Somewhere

there is Christmas,

Somewhere there is gentle snow;

Somewhere there are soft eyes...watching,

when more means simply, more of you…somewhere.

prelude to light

In a dream of flight,

which came to solitary night,

a rainbow encircled the Sun;

And suddenly I knew

it was always thus, so true

legends of gold fallen to one.

As the flight unfolds-

no longer tired nor old-

I rise, indifferent to direction;

glad to soar, gaze from above

gathered within, all of my Love

the greatest work my life has done.

Deep and slowly run

a river's journey once begun

a wandered web, which time has spun

bonds of endless light,

exceeds the reach of darkest night.

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