It is hollow sounding
once struck-
then resonant, tones
that lean and carry
into the next.
Suppressed by pedal
at breathing points,
only to fly in phrasing
and surround-
taking us in.
Suppose we were
to stay, encompassed by
the echo, inside the billow
of the melody
improvised.
How would we know?
After the first note
we breathe its air-
sway in a joined jive
inside the song.
Even led among
the staves, turning
and taking our time
for crescendos
and kisses.
I followed the twisting branch
of the hazel tree, from the end
contorting me through its bends and corkscrew
wrench. I noticed the blue sky
just beyond and lingered there
for just moments and lost my try.
I traced a tangled shoot
from its tip, well into the
mangled form, and noticed a single
leaf – waiting- and watched
it live, forgetting how I traveled
there and where I was destined.
I chased the crooked lines
that overlapped and twined,
becoming one in the matted vines
where sky and sun are dim
and all is mangled and confined.
My words were caught in creviced splines.
I let the torsions lead me in
and angled, changing me instead
remained on a path of helix.
With new braids and spirals wed,
the path led somewhere new ahead
among the hazel twists and treks.
When I prepare the yard for winter,
the time when all is stark and lost,
the dead have wilted, scruff and ragged –
and I remove the chaff and croft.
As I gird the garden, whether
further growth is wont or not,
bedded mounds of soil and leavings
cover greener, fledgling thoughts.
Seeded verse on sorted papers
things that sleep beneath decay
seedlings of the spring and morrow
beauty fit for flow’red cliche’
Here I leave the hopes of summer
warm enchantments, an enclave
hidden from the weather – bitter
though purposed to save.
As if it is more than she first breathed,
a life beyond the ocean’s crest
or past the highest tree.
She feels her wants, and gathers what she needs.
Marked assumption, close and firm, and pressed
to carry passions free.
An apple redder than anger’s seed
or simple care to disentangle tress’s,
the golden, ornate key.
Silken girl,raging whorl is she
who’d rather give the world waking regrets
than silent repartee.
As if it’s greater than the sum of her marquee,
but most of all in her largesse,
the inspiration given me.
October leaves me in thatches,
between the warm beaches
and pale wintered branches.
I remember the autumn,
the slow scale of mornings-
the decorative fallen.
I see her in color,
the amber-crisp sunlight
that touches to cover.
For moments, I tarry-
enveloped and yielding
to her fay and fairy.
I reach for her hand
and she vanishes,
my visions are damned
in the moment between
burgeoning summer
and winter’s pale serene.
As it happens, I get lost in the sky
where sunsets stroll away.
A peaking light around a corner
beyond the frontier of yesterday
I look to the last remains
even when the shadows begin
and wrapped from behind in covers
I gaze toward a fading din.
I dream of passion reds
that trail to orange, bleed to pink.
Turning around in silent awe
to indigo in a wink.
And there the fire ignites upon
this early autumn eve,
a lover of the colored sky
embraced without reprieve.
In a gift for someone that I once knew-
A few moments wrapped
in crisp paper with string.
each one a mating of calm and called.
Intent on these penetrating emotions-
they are patterns of poetry from memories
underneath the neat taped corners.
They could be jumbled and incoherent,
but I prefer them pressed and bound
and self-contained.
Thumb-pressure creased,
Holding the pieces
firmly together.
Notions of affection
convened for her disposal
will be mailed
in the morning.
***********
A reworking of a poem that I first wrote in 2006.
I find it in the feet of bell tones,
after sorbing the sound as struck and deep.
I see the auric crest at the tip of leaves
in the moments of late summer’s wanton eve.
I feel the arc that bows in honor
of poetry heard, and hopes that won’t cease.
I hear it in the intake of calm
from the instant of lighting, the droning that sleeps.
It caresses the silence just beyond music,
and lingers on fingertips framed in release.
It walks in the tawny remembrance of noon-tide,
and ploys in the finish of our masterpiece.
And sounding the whisper of midnight and morning,
the tolling of hours when time passes, sweeps
away the cache of conflagration
leaving morsels we should keep.
I find it in the feet of bell tones,
with sounds that amble soft and sweet.
Sometimes,
I want to fall apart-
spontaneously disassemble
and disconnect into hundreds
of small fragments,
interlocking of course-
like puzzles of autumn afternoons
just out of the box.
The ones with rushing streams
that leave the edge of the frame
to some unseen bend.
The leaves are gilded and bronzed,
ready to separate
upon the first overnight rain.
And water droplets cling
to porch eaves, just at the crest
when tension breaks.
And we embrace
with a lingered kiss,
and we are knitted to keep from
unraveling.
Can you walk among the grasses, ornamental in your step?
Unseen, wavering in the flutter, moving with the ebb.
Do you glide among the flushing, hues of sanguine be your veil?
Camouflaging simper, as you sweep through with avail.
Will you pace ahead in rhythm, accents driving your advance?
Pausing, as an instrument, to cause my soul to dance.
Opening a gateway, hearing sounds of air
watching, waiting for a glimpse of allure unaware.
Can you wander through my field of view, as I write a verse?
Something about movement, and a guise you can’t rehearse.
Taps and Ratamacues 