Category Archives: imagery

chalk

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I use chalk to smudge the lines a bit
and shade the parts where I don’t feel I fit.

Fermatas placed to hold the chords in time
while I dance around cadenzas dipped in rhyme.

I’d rather stare and watch the sun in parallax,
circumventing pain and disappointment – that’s the fact.

Beauty walks, and moves, and sings in form
and transits over paths that I have worn,

shows indifference to my charm- my soul in kind
and I have nothing left save yearning in my mind.

And these, the words of someone sacrificed
to life and how I bleed on paper, less precise.

To stand and sing of resignation, it is mine,
and using chalk can smudge and blur the line.

lagniappe

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Because mornings emerge from misty bayous
and moss that hangs and touches the sky-
a reflection in glass.
Because the thickness in the air wraps
the sunlight and holds it close.
The moments are a drawl, and a legacy of
stillness waits-
it waits between each drawing breath,
lingers between each morning glory
and rain lily-
a sweet kiss from a drowsy boo
and its momentary entanglements.
Even before the first note sounds
the blues, there is beauty conjured in the
slim to none spell-
and it is some kind of wonderful,too.

a foothold in the daisies

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The clouds are just now learning how to speak.
There’s a foothold in the daisies,
and a slow descent of water from the creek
The sun is rising amber, slow and weak.

The melody of morning turns
it’s ear upon the repeat cooing dove
and smells of honeysuckle
wafted in from somewhere down the grove.

A single tuft of flowers out among
the complete scene of hurried traffic,
other places here and in-between-
a foothold in the daisies –
a shared embrace,
devotion to a yellow speck in space.

And safe return to where began this whole mystique,
and I am learning -just now- how to speak.

arc

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A camber in her first and last embrace
and welling tears I wipe against my face.
Lingered time, that passes under breath
and desires to leave are changing less and less.
Words do not exist to tell this tale,
just kisses, fumbling hands, and hearts impaled.

abandon

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snow melting abandon
stenciled-
meant to carry away
the weep of wintry
bitterness.
drops that melted
from ice gripped
with steadfast assurances.
each drip an escapee
of purpose,
prone to wander
and feel its own
way, with only the sound
of sequent kin
that silence with distance.
winding catacombs
lead to some outcome,
to a gathering of likeness
that feeds the living
and absorbs
the dissolute elements
of the dead.

Bird, bees, flowers, trees

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The bird that spreads it’s wings to fly
aloft in winds and lullabyes
will often finds a hiding place
with little bustle, subtle grace.

The bee at work, no time to spare-
buzzing, fluttering, from here to there
to stigmas moist with other fare
but not a sound to make aware-

The flower blossomed, spread in view
with pink and yellow, vibrant hues –
and undulating sun and dew
confessed in morning light, anew.

And ever green, the pine tree stands
accepting flight with steady hands.
Each bough abets, make no mistake
and comforts those who stay awake.

in a room with over-sized books

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In a room with over-sized books
and a dungy wing-back chair,
I am invited to sit
and look at maps of Belize
and Montenegro, tables espousing
cotton production
in the deep south, where is the world’s leading
smelter of tin,
or diagrams of different zoological
families.
Garden paths of azaleas
in a gulf between tall oaks,
Photographs of Lennon on holiday
and Lenin in state,
and the virtues of handmade linen,
all woven and attentive
to my browsing.
Bindings jut and overhang
from the shelves,
like spanish moss speaking,
knowing that I choose the ones
who pronounce themselves
and embrace my turn
of the page.

********
I was spending time in a library this week, when I happened on
the oversized book collection in a quiet room with
a single chair. So much about this collection and this
environment spoke to me.

Contours

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I am afraid of
painted wood,
of silence, the absence
of touch-
all empty hearts.

Do not conceal the grain.
an errant
beauty that meanders
repeats patterns,
a sorcery of contrast
that speaks of light and dark,
grown in the embrace of time.

Smoothed in polished hue,
yet textured and aching
for traces
to sound
and hear its voice.

The vibrations that
act upon a contoured soul
and adjoin
with tongues of parity,
a shape that’s shared and sown.

*******************
While sitting at my work table, I noticed the beautiful wood grain that wove through the surface, and this poem emerged.

From

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There on,
her window sill blossoms
with planter box flowers
of slow jazz and Stanleys.
Her hand in the sunlight,
its daughter, light and blue.
Of red poppies,
love and forever –
displayed in tune.
And sometimes her crush
of the embraceable gypsy,
-of you
and your charming
pinned notes of heart’s spade
and peonies,
cause her to croon and cascade.
Her fingers lace
through clusters and letters,
still photographs of the
of scarlet fragments her
tears leave in the dirt – along
with the packet
of field daisy seeds
from me.

Details

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I remember the blue in her eyes,
though often they were green –
a wistfulness, when she tilted her head,
sentiment at the seams.

Her fingertips, absently tracing the rim
of a cup or a saucer, or both.
The governed expanse of the contour
revealing as is, clothed.

To lean in, whisper lure and yearning,
so bold and sacred, so preferred –
then settle back in tidal fashion
sands and beaches bared – secured.

I recall the mounting balance
that melody and rhythm bind,
a song there at the nucleus
hastened,
fresh and primed.

I have felt the blue of her ocean,
my eyes remember the scene.
And I am the breeze that comes off the water
pensive and longing my dreams.