Category Archives: Language

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!

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.

The Creation Hour

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~A villanelle~

The creation of art is a mystical power

a mirror of a mind, sometimes tedious or blind

but it’s something I could do for hours and hours.

Pouring a vision into handicraft that’s ours

becomes this tangible model of glitter, matte or kind

the creation of art blossoms its flowers.

Wily, constructions with transcendent powers,

a collage of many lives on as one in time,

and strikes the synapse at a witching hour.

Concluding the whispered poetry with a glower,

a musical interlude, rhymed and intertwined.

I could go on, as I’m musing the power.

That last fabrication, I observe and devour

and with concluding approval, I am so inclined.

The creation of art is a mystical power

and I could continue for hours on hours.

Encased

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In my personal shadow-box are many treasures and perhaps some rocks, toys and memories from my past, and in the shadow-box, they last.

From my pocket to the side, I pulled a pinch of something ossified, what once may have been from a wound debrided. It’s simply a pebble, I’ve now decided.  

A marble, glassy, green and blue, from a collection of many I had and threw around the playground tree at school, collecting spoils for keeps like jewels.

His gun raised up high, a green plastic soldier from a platoon of recruits that I had as I was older. Despite the difference in my age and size, I never developed a loud battle-cry.

A tiny, tyrannosaurus rex, a figurine without a sex, insignias on patches and badges – but none of them jog my memory with matches.

A matchbox car painted apple-red, with opening doors and the letter zed on the hood. Don’t ask me why it’s there, I’m not sure I could.

An old pocket watch that no longer tells time, I’m grateful to all that had passed in its prime, next to a heart made from elastic and beads, stretchy and tactile and has met all my needs.

A rounded, polished piece of quartz made from tumbling, now distorts lines and letters like mumbling. This shadow box where these trinkets have graced, all the while keeping my memories encased.

Perspective on a hill

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The view from the window is a hill I won’t die on.

Framed on all sides by brick and concrete or old pine trim, it is a portal of a shelter built with a single perspective.

This limited view of the world, covered in dull charcoal – interwoven to attract our focus and screen out flies – mutes the light of new vision and also things to the left and right of the sight line.

Though I do see the changes of a season through it. When the orange and reds arrive, and I see leaves falling – I want to see more. More than this view offers.

And I peek around the edges of the frame to see the wind move through and the rainclouds form. This, rather than wait for darkness to enclose the hill outside my window, is a better view.

Even more so to step outside to feel the wind and hear the leaves. To watch as the rain arrives, then departs. The uneven steps and grassy plots to the pinnacle -where I can see more horizons.

Beyond the window, the hill is even more beautiful when I’m out upon it and living the terrain. This is a hill I will die on.