Put away the talk, the thoughts,
The clatter of self-righteous profanity
Orbiting abilities and results-
These things are vanity.
Put on the cross, the means of grace,
That crushes to death the heart of sin,
For we are a peculiar race,
Whose means justify our end.
I want to wish you Merry Christmas
but an open word’s an invitation,
and if I know you as well as I let on
you would swallow the anticipation
with a warm mug of scorn.
I want to wish you a Merry Christmas
but the ghosts of Christmas past
warn me, remind me of days gone by
and the safety here, by contrast,
is a world of boundless sky.
I want to wish you Merry Christmas
but it’s just an empty sentiment,
with no activity inside it
to expose this peace to the detriment
of your insights, malicious and misguided.
I want to wish you Merry Christmas,
but I won’t.
What is this undertow and riptide,
constantly tugging at my inner parts?
I want to laugh and sing and dance,
but a melancholy current imparts
quietness of spirit.
I remember dancing in the dark
as therapy and catharsis.
Is the wild and free so lost to waves,
So tossed between the artless
It cannot resurface?
My offspring dances unconsciously,
following the flow of sound.
I’ve forgotten how these limbs move,
but hope the good of yesterday redounds
on today…
on tomorrow.
All night home
and the sorrow sat in my chest.
It didn’t force my feet to run;
I found in sadness some rest,
And you were there.
You were sad,
and you never should be.
There was some distance
Woven into our sudden proximity,
But it didn’t make us.
All these miles
are wasted hours of waiting,
to be other than I am,
to overcome the berating
that gave me flight.
The storm in me
keeps me off the coast,
and it isn’t the winds of memory
that keep me engrossed,
or pull me back
But the shoreline view-
All the smiles, the embraces,
the new wrinkles forming
around familiar old faces
I am missing every day.
Silent and snow-dusted,
Slumbering on their feet like sheep
White in the moon,
Huddled together to sleep.
Too innocent to fear the harvest,
Too old to anticipate delight,
They stand shoulder to shoulder-
Invincible tonight.
And their entire world is ever green,
But for the falling snow.
I concede to the chill to see
The wonder and mystery bestowed
No child outgrows.
I set my jaw, my resolve,
No more poetry
Nonsense.
I sent a clot downstream,
To dam the torrent of words
Raging.
But the headaches come one by one,
Linguistic lobes fed by throbbing vessels
All the words composed,
All waiting…
All left undone.
Existence is a raging bonfire:
Risk, love, thought, desire.
Devouring more to reach ever higher
Consumption of all it acquires.
Some memories are pallid ash
Light and flake, swirling mass
Clinging, climbing upward drafts
Dissolving into the dark and vast.
Others hiss and spit and spew,
Unprepared to burn all through,
To yield to fire and to flue.
They die neither silent, nor subdued.
Whatever remains in the great ash heap,
When every ember falls to its sleep,
Refined by fire, purest of deep,
Is forged alone for the eternal keep.
These are the days of ease,
The days of the Sugar Maple
And the Butternut trees,
The Walnut and the Hickory.
My young saplings grow as these,
Little roots, little branches, little bark,
Until they’ve grown, and put off leaves,
And leave me breathless in the breeze.
Should I never get to see,
Another limb stretch to the sky,
These days are hidden treasuries,
Of maples and of memories.
I spoke a mantra
Wrote it down,
I thought I had expelled you.
The hiccups paused,
I believed were done,
Until another gasp inhaled you.
How can this be
For any good?
I must find and burn your altar.
How have ancient
Dreams withstood
These years they do not alter.
Why won’t they falter
Like I do?
All these dreams
They still persist
Even after my crude exorcism.
It’s so unseemly
They exist
Somewhere in reflex or optimism,
Behind my reams,
My pen, my wrist,
My highest tenacity or masochism.
viewingcamelot 