In her imaginary distraction,
everything
stops as she looks around.
She selects a turn,
the one of coloring
and innuendo-
a highlighter pink
in the field of grey-
intimate overtones
of a sacred familiar-
and she pursues it.
She captures the banded words,
a gathering of flowers
to fill her hands
and draw in close,
holding her breath,
when exhalation
means
absolution.
A red door
with plate glass casements ’round
enclosing a deepened vestibule-
and shadows on white walls are bound.
bold-faced clouds that billow
into thunderstorms on Sundays-
woodland sunflowers that line
shadowed waterfront lanes.
alone under
a darkened rift of stars –
in wonder of their stillness,
yet know not what they are
it is the wind that blows from the shore
out to sea.
it is the light that steals from obscurity
it is the embrace of an onliest thing
it is the sum of these
that sways me on a quiet string.
Sometimes the best place to be is inside the mind of a writer,
as an undeveloped character just observing the story as it erupts.
Sometimes the best place to be is on a field, just ahead
of a brewing thunderstorm, feeling the wind as it sweeps the grasses.
Other times it is best to be there when the rain is stopping
and the sound of thunder -far-away- rumbles on an unseen field.
Sometimes to lie on a field, and watch the stars appear.
At times, to wake in the night, and hear the silence
as it lulls you back to sleep.
Then sometimes, when the sun-rays fan between houses
capturing the morning in a blooming progression, it is best to be there.
Sometimes it is best to be the pivotal word in a sentence
from your love, her inflection and enunciation drawing a painting of the next moment,
where it is best to be.
To write of writing seems so trite
and through this morning all alight,
composing and constructing rime
I seemed to focus all my time
on something sonorous and sleek
and this I cared to form and tweak.
Yet, I could not stay the sounds,
the ones that crack, the ones that round,
the ones that exhale in the wind,
the ones that rest and feed and sin.
I could not break them -though so eager-
then left for you, my reckless reader-
Something in the writing here
with devotion to the ear,
in the hopes that when you read
the music, timbre’d whole will cede
and capture from its hiding place
a flush – a sweltering embrace.
in truth,
held between the point
and paper,
-all writing is captive.
No matter
its color in light
or softness of skin,
whether veiled by chiffon or lace
or by shadows covering your face,
this bathes and penetrates
the pages in.
And here I, the author,
have placed myself
on this adjoining space-
and if desired and allowed,
(if nothing else be true)
I’ll awaken in some verse
absorbed in text
or presuming scrawl,
in a moment
next to you.
Setting upon her
-weariness –
while watching the boughs
droop,
the strain
measured in accented calls
bent to her will.
Along with this
a litany of swells
and shoots,
each one a memento
entangled with blooms.
But, I have no such reminder-
as the words I choose
murmur and drone
like florets
worn down by the rain,
both exhausted
and sustained
among the leaves,
smeared in abstract.
interlacing threads
in the tissue of her time
she spent long intervals
on cross strokes
slanting down
and open form,
committing each letter
of woe
to a fabric-
bound to make something
beautiful.
when the door is closed
she cries silent tears
and mines her thoughts-composed
her distress disappears
into a verse she knows by heart
and sings her soul to stir
a theme, a song the poet starts
to sketch- conveys the world to her.
such things should be in books to share
and on the page inspired
with predecessor’s ink and air
once weighted and admired.
Though now, poetic thoughts disperse
on ether, winds unbound
and beauty finds a home inversed
not on pages, written down.
and when she’s in her room, confined-
her echos and her action sings
minding thoughts-composed and rhymed
for that day and these modest things.
**********************
I read news every day about poetry being on the wane, about publications being discontinued, about fewer opportunities for poetry to be in the mainstream…it is sad, but poetry is a language that can’t be killed. It breaths life into itself. It’s subversive. It is ethereal. It constantly changes. It renews itself and us in the process. If it ever reaches the point where poetry is not printed (and I hope it never does!), it will exist on the scrap papers, napkins, brick walls and memories/minds of its practitioners.
calling amid the
intermittent drops
that fall and soak the ground
or
seeing entangled
clouds appear
with the morning light.
not
just as a backdrop
of weather,
but a welcoming
posture
I see coming
into view
awaiting entrance,
her subtle hand
on glass.
in a moment of thankfulness,
on the arcing turn
where it may be
unstable, and precarious to be
on such an edge-
one part cusp and adamant
yet agreeable
one part adrift, roaming
yet anchored
to each other-
in this moment of his gratitude
held while leaning
into her arching turn.
*********************
A sign I see every day driving to work that warns of the roadway perils became a poem.
Taps and Ratamacues 