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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
~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.
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.
It’s a part of the tune that doesn’t last long.
When I need a deep breath after things have gone wrong,
it’s a fishhook to bring me up from the depths.
I find myself seeking a felicitous sound
and listening for the turnaround.
It’s a movement that’s made, whether in blues or in jazz
to keep a song interesting -some razzmatazz –
about one chords to sevens and other such stuff,
I won’t pretend to knowingly expound,
just listen for the turnaround.
It’s the first bud of spring coming out of the frost
and the very first lightnin’ bug of past summers lost,
It’s the yellow and red sneaking out of the green,
The first floating snowflake that lights on the ground
all transitions worthy of a turnaround.
The best we can do is to move on our own,
but walk among others so we won’t be alone.
It’s the time and the place of the new moon and stars,
As we are feet first. with our souls earthbound,
The last call will sound like a turnaround.
Close your eyes and count to ten.
Wishes won't come true 'til then.
Considerations blink and mar your thoughts.
Up to two you've tied a dream in knots.
In this moment, circumspect
reaction might cause you neglect.
The delay in what your heart is wishing for -
not long - succinct - a brief six-seconds more.
Close your eyes, accumulate -
(your mind digresses while you wait).
Make a list of salient bullet-points
to greet the sunrise when you wake your voice.
And in the moment just before
you reach the end count's opening door,
in heroic fashion speak your truth and due
and banish all the hardness once beshrewed.
Taps and Ratamacues 