Free verse,
For what it’s worth,
Or what it’s worth to me.
And all these words,
These nuggets panned,
All wash back out to sea.
Sinking, ever sinking
Under foam and fusty wave,
Their value and their legacy
All lost inside the grave.
Category Archives: Passion
Penny Thoughts
Twinkle, twinkle
Brilliant stories, luminous beacons
Flashing into depthless space
Dividing the dark matter
With an ever constant pace
Calling and commanding
Until all who hear draw nigh
Close enough to see, perceive
The brilliant star has died.
Fissure King
It stained everything
In the days I was shaken
Seeping from cracks
Ripped through the foundation.
Broken, I became
All ink stain and rubble.
Who pained to look on me
Invited trouble.
Days and distance
Stilled the quake
I still awake at night
Prone to shake
In the wake of the devastation
I have tasted:
The flesh and folly
Quaking wasted.
Who I am
Forever stained
Along the fissures
Carved like veins
By a mighty hand
I could not see,
Guiding these cracks
That had to be
But in the deepest chasm
Of fractured despair,
I found one small flower
Blooming fair
A fragile, fragrant blossom,
Unfamiliar to my sight,
And it’s nectar held the power
To put every fracture right.
I did not have it in me
To shut up the chasm deep,
To force the little flower
Into impotence and sleep.
So I live along these fault lines,
This open, aching earth,
So I can ever reach the little bloom
That grants broken dust rebirth.
There is a great compassion
Built into my design;
I am the gaping fissure,
But the flower, too, is mine.
Always You
Asleep again, and fever dipped
So gripped by dream
I can’t awake
Or shake free a morning beam
To stir the day, or to redeem.
And all we gathered on our way
Stays within our view.
We navigate our space
Facing all we cannot do,
Or be, or claim as true.
But the truth leaves my lips,
A sip of all things
That happen beside time
Mine and your paintings,
In flesh and fainting.
But I was deceived
You achieved all you desired
In my absence
My passions left unfired;
My allegiance uninspired.
In that moment she came
Your same, your one, that’s when
I saw in my blindness
Your kindness was compassion
Not love, but a pitiful reaction.
They mocked my flaws,
According to the laws of woman’s choosing
And you frowned silent
Compliant, but disapproving
Of the superfluous bruising.
I’ve wandered long
One song in my chest,
But no one in need of the tune.
How soon I’ll return to broken rest,
And it is always you inside my breast
Sunk like an arrow.
Great Rumble
Lightning strikes
Like artillery works
Heat and violence washing us
In waves of light.
Who struck first
And who strikes last
When dust and cloud
Settle down
Into ash and earth.
England
From along your bonny shores,
All your words slipped out to sea
Under tides of salted foam, their form
Retained their mystery
Until they found my port
Until they came to live with me.
And through the tempest, and the storm,
We became each other’s lee.
Now we have grown, intertwined,
Like two branches in the wind
Holding hands in like kind
Until our hands can mend.
I sheltered, you refined:
We became identical, adoptive twins.
And all the words I can find
Came first from you, my friend.
Very soon, I’ll fly to you,
To the place where you were born.
I’ll see your heather, and your blue
Your grey and misty morns.
I’ll walk your cobbled dew
Along the path already worn
By those whose hearts were true,
By those whose oaths were sworn,
To face what cannot be subdued
To write what can’t be mourned
Tyranny
How we rove to find fault lines
Along the beggars’ crust.
Drunkards at our temples’ wines
Before they fall to dust,
And all we crave, and all that shines
Is eaten o’er with rust.
Kingdoms built up single-handed
Walling out their friend.
Blood and water have demanded:
Evaporation is their end.
The fools have all disbanded
Repackaged to transcend.
Governments so small
One mere ruler need preside.
Taxes levied all,
But none will thus divide.
We have built our gates so tall
To neglect the space inside!
Revolve
Great round moon
Circling my days,
Like a mother peeking at her sleeping children.
In the dark
I search your black sky
To dispel with your light what the night wants to paint.
Smiling face
Ever stalwart friend,
Showering on me from the safety of our companionship.
At One
I have sinned against You alone,
And by Your blood,
You have atoned.
You didn’t waste one-
These tears that fell
Like exploding light bulbs:
Diminished glory, broken shells.
Shouldn’t I have known?
How could I forget-
You do not take these lightly:
My sin, my sorrow, my regret,
My design?
You arrange my ways-
The Impeccable Composer,
The Ancient of Days.
And You are no stranger to pain,
Pouring out Your blood
In rivers of burning,
Cleansing, saving love.
I have sinned against You alone,
But by this blood,
You alone atone.
The Broken
How many years, how many faces,
Weeping for graces,
Hiding amongst the dead,
And stealing bread
To fill their empty souls.
The weight of their broken bits
Always weighing, weighing, weighing
And I fall remiss.
I weep for the little ones,
The wandering bones
Who have ached long
For a home, for a song,
To fill their empty souls.
The weight of their broken bits
Always weighing, weighing, weighing
And I fall remiss.
And if I weep
Surely You, who knows no sleep,
Must keep vigil, must keep track
Of all the little hearts
who can’t fight back,
The weight of their broken bits
Always waiting, waiting, waiting
For someone to assist,
And You exist,
And therefore mend.
