One hundred
twenty eight beats
per minute,
beginning like rain
settling on a tenement roof
from a passing storm.
The noise rides a swell
to overtake the edge of
docile music
and crescendos-
then wittily settles in between
the pacing of a brisk walk.
After forty breaths that
fumble hand-over-hand to
scale keys to a resonant finish,
such sounds decay, in imitation
of distant leaves rustling
in the last gasp
of a gale.
Strolling in darkness in silent concern
with life undercutting all want and return
Walking the shoreline with feet in the waves
Abigail, Tara, and Lindsay fill staves
with sirens and offers too good to decline.
The sounds of their names, uncommon and fine.
Abigail offers a mortgage loan, low
percentage not even the word to invoke
digging in sand, finding the clams
that pull in the dingey, watery sham.
Tara sends out regards from the world
of spirits. A reading, she offers unfurled.
A fortune, as tides, beckoning your feet
to wander a little to far in the deep.
Lindsay is lonely and looking for love,
her harmony highest with you. -speaking of-
her likes are like yours, walking on beaches,
moonlight and dancing, her calling beseeches.
Yet, as the sun rises, the tide washes over
the siren-like cries of the ocean grow colder.
Abigail, Tara, and Lindsay all say:
hurry, please act on their offers today.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Some spam entries that jumped into a bucket and came out as poetry, (apologies to ee cummings)
I hear the voices, when you crack the spine
from page to page, the clouds hold out the blue
of skies that start as clear to him as you.
In novels written out and underlined,
Author dreams come spilling forth to grow
stories from the soul to please her whim
from seeds her index finger plants for him
in different climes, contrary row-by-row.
A hero’s man, no less a vagabond
the mistress wholely anxious in her soothe
neither seeking love or much ado;
yet, the words conspire to spur them on.
and love peeks in, then crawls out from its shell
with tales of kings and queens and breaking spells.
heartfelt, kind words,
warm as soup,
is it wrong to want it in a mug
instead of a bowl?
Whether to go left or right instead of up,
down in error of back.
or crab crawl, in lock step
for a beautiful formation
cooked down from the least combination
of ingredients,
ladled out of your mind.
conclude with the oyster crackers from a
cellophane packet that you crinkled
and tossed away.
in that way, you can travel
and warm your hands in the cold
sipping as you need it,
and walking slow,
the people around you
ascend the streets.
The concept
is really simple, where
the addition of them
opens a language that
otherwise stumbles in silence,
As a simple “why ?”
infuses the sunlight and breeze
to rattle the trees in reply.
Yet without sound,
with eyes alone,
that creates a chasm in its invocation.
and, just as quickened,
closes a gap in response
between lovers,
with an embrace,
but no words,
and silence fulfilled.
Shimmered metal,
-as curiousity-
sets into motion,
agitates the dust
and ascends a mountain
because challenge told it to.
a distant voice inspired
a click and whirr,
to go and meet the mountain
on a singular path,
once side winding then inclined.
ever moving, but when complete,
and turned to face
the horizon of red, a being might stand in triumph
-arms raised-
and shout for hills to cry out
with sound!
waves that intrude
upon the desolate solitude
separated by 34 million miles
of loneliness – a vacuous truth.
it blinks.
I’ve noticed that the
majority of visitors
to my blog have no real
place to call home in this universe,
this internet.
-they are phantom and leave no trail-
perhaps they move
from place to place
just looking for rest.
I see the bedding areas
that deer make, but I never see them
actually there,
just crushed ryegrass and swamp oats
pressed in ovals.
it’s not
that there aren’t many
good things to write about any more,
-just so many familiar combinations-
of dark and light,
closed and opened
leading and ending phrases,
that if I pen a melody
in the key of D minor,
I might just end
a song
on the supertonic,
where brooding
turns to joy,
in full measure.
Laying my head aside
on the table,
I made the sun rise faster.
While closing,
then opening one eye
(and encouraged to applaud)
it hops up and down.
Inspiration can be difficult
without a strong wall
to bounce a ball.
I seek them
and they crumble upon impact.
Tiles in this table
are neatly placed end-to-end
and side-to-side.
(My poems are less organized,
but still fit nicely in my frame.)
The grout in between
holds them tightly together.
After a pedestrian moment,
a single bell tolls
and calls me to fill
or to empty my head.
I choose the latter
while the sun bounces.
*****
a poem from July 2007, slightly reworked and refocused.
And molded as clay,
pinching and coaxing
with time would change it
at each thrown recollection,
until it listed on the page
ready to be fired and glazed.
and then it is affixed
to a memory.
Taps and Ratamacues 