Utensils

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With the scoop of a spoon, that part of my brain

taken with and attuned to the art of mundane –

was lopped in a cup and mixed with a stain

then used to brush out a full moon.

With the pare of a knife, a snip and a splinter

taken and stored away from the winter.

This part of my heart, in the cold seems to hinder

a place for the raven and wren.

Then using a fork, stabbing with tines

into the tongue that won’t speak thorough lines.

Truth carries in winds of the spoken, and pines

to murmur its thanks to the muse.

These wares for the poet, taken in kind

from a painting of moonlight and bits of the mind,

They offer a glimpse of the art that I find

inside and outside a resonant notion.

Precipitous

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Sitting down at a cliff, my feet bare and dangling-

I stare at a horizon that’s confounding and mangling.

Where one should see glistening sunlight and all,

an iciness glooms in the form of a squall.

A hollering wind blew down from fell shadows

stealing the Good from the ones who bestow

kindness to strangers, as said by St. Paul-

unusual – I wonder to the face of a squall.

This kindness flies over and under and through

and cuts into natures of hate – like a coup.

Something that causes precipitous grace

blanketing iciness over in glace.

I sit on the cliff, my feet cold and misused –

while my dangling thoughts, now bright and suffused

cover a page that is much less embrangled.

I put on my shoes and go forth to the mangled.

Shimmering Light

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There’s a time when trees are bleeding,

To fill the space with something new.

Or with the birth from something seeding

blossoms, tapping into something true.

Darkness shimmers in the winter,

Lit by stars and crystal air.

A meaning carried front and center

When bells ring out so loud and clear.

A life, a gift from God to sinners

In a sense puts heaven near.

So like the carols sound arisen

Sung out with a shimmering light

For our selves and for our children

Merry Christmas all, Good Night!

All Hallows – a vignette

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The skeleton hangs in an autumnal quiet,

With nothing to stir them bones to click .

The moon shining in as a spot keen to spy it; a spider’s web droops, it’s ironic

The silence gives nothing away

And the moonlight simply stays,

Casting shadows and a pall

For bones that are buried in the wall. 

A calico yarn

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I’m looking out for a cardigan sweater,

One that is knitted from calico yarn,

with black onyx buttons and deep empty pockets

to hold all my empathy some would like scorned.

Knitting the line with the purl to the row,

ending then starting afresh just below.

Building a comfort, an armor of sorts

guarding the kindness malignance would thwart.

I’m seeking out a cardigan sweater

something to wear among those filled with blame

for some others because they can’t justify

the differences that we all know but won’t name.

Perhaps, with a cable stitch, crossing the groups,

the pattern gets deeper and as such recoups

a bit more humanity. The color is broad

the transitions combining results aren’t as flawed.

This stitch and that stitch in confidence worn

a cardigan sweater made from calico yarn.

Plummet

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Like a flying squirrel that barrels down from its perch in the spruce,
limbs outstretched to maneuver the route.
Or a frog sitting pond-side, croaking then hops,
extending its haunches, an arc then kerplop.
A paper airplane from the rafters, lofted on air,
glides downward in spirals – a no assistance affair.
The mighty blue whale swims along as it sings,
I wander my world, and I ponder these things
with no such breaching to remark on my way.
Some landings are harsh with a huge debt to pay.

But the ease of the motion, the faith in the flight,
and the jump into deepness with the floor so benighted.
That gravity holds so much in its hands,
or lets as much go as we give way our stance
from a limb or a high point in a precipitous fall.
The squirrel nor the frog or the whale know at all
how the glide of the plane comes in for a landing.
Yet I know that I move in ways far less demanding,
with not so much height or a flight on a good day.
The landing is harsh, with a huge debt to pay.

The meaning of color

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Color me up to the edges of my outline in thatches of crayon strokes; bits of ochre, fern and midnight blue.

Rarely will I bleed ink on the pages, but mostly to my fingertips, black and blue from pressure on the quill.

Means are geometric for non-normal distributions. A gathering blue that peaks then tails into infinity.

Anything that rarely happens once is blue, like the synodic moon to achieve its baker’s dozen dominance.

But in the context of other palettes, blue marks the calmness

Love brings to the spirit.

Between the lines

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And as we are shuffling, waiting in line

birds sit and watch from evergreen branches.

The mystery rises, twisting, revealing our faces

tired from the digging with tools of our making

just to stand in the queue, biding our time.

Even on holiday, following the line

for small worlds, or out of this universe thrills,

the heat from the pavement blows into the shade

and we await our turn at willful escaping.

Something has bound us in place in this time.

Staving a cadence with melody lines;

whistling a tune with hopes of inception,

I choose the notes that fall out on the page.

Writing as though I have skill for creating

a world that exists for our meeting in time.

But now in a bulwark, some hold the line

awaiting a plane of a choice, to unfold.

Dots creep and crawl from out of the trenches

enveloping ones who can’t hear the ground breaking

and those who are wicked die time after time.

Particle Physics

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Carried away in a winter flurry, I floated beyond the roadway to field
a cascade of tumbling and turning in fury with no senses left in my fractal to wield.
Drafted amidst an embankment of feathered snowfall and friends gathered up in the wind.
There is limited space in my baggage, and whether I stop or continue is reliant on spin.
It’s a harsh realization to how I might stay, unique as a creation, only to melt away.

Flying in dust with a storm from the desert, arid and blustered, sandblasting a wall.
I am the barrage that is hurtled, angered by winds and force-fed by a squall,
piled against structures both modern and ancient, weighted in crystal to bury the past.
Left as a mountain of sand filled with barrenness, nothing remains, and silence is cast.
Here lies a path of how to live at dead ends, angry, destructive, withered and bent.

Waiting in place for the sunrise to settle, tucked in a flower covered with dew.
Soon come the buzzwords and breezes of springtime, lofting me out to a story anew.
Thrumming and whirling from petal to petal, sometimes expulsion to ride on the air
Longing for fruits of a cross-pollination in scenes, not the plot from a book by Voltaire. Newness in bloom, a result of this happenstance, the physics of particles make up the dance.

Tenuto

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A smoky glitter emanating from a fire,
stirred and stoked from flames as I admire
pulling misty conflagrations in my sight.
These shuffling sparkles fight with stars for focus now at night.

Opening salvos resonate unspoken tongues,
and golden tickets don’t always sing what one becomes.
Dancing bees regard me with a little gaze,
for I am not a flower or a gathering of bouquets.

Neither do I seek what’s meant of snags that drag me slow.
Efforts crafted nimbly well succeed in legato.
But an artist’s eccentricities stand out
like sand verbena after rain ends desert drought.
These purple blossoms on desert floors
flash life/disintegrate, but something more,

The dust of aged whispers, ghostly to be sure,
might only be conversant in myths and refutation of the obscure.
A beauty speaks some truths, as the nighttime fireside gleams.
This can hardly be the fruit or grains of my muse dream.

The fire has smoldered and ashes pulse and glow,
my thoughts of poetry fade in pianissimo.
Now berries of a bitter kind are hulled,
and I partake of all the sweetness I can cull.