My face is flushed.
I am touched again
By brevity, and the severity
Of overturned nests
And untended graves.
She stands brave,
Shields and flags and
Empty scabbards,
Foils and sharps and
A parry too late.
Each breath a rebellion,
From a bloody womb
Into a bloody world
A white-fisted petal,
A nightingale in a jar.
Siege the inevitable,
Voices only composed
Of exhaled air
Songs diminished,
Replaced, interred.
These verses were never written
To impress, to stand on display
On their own two legs,
Nor extend their limbs, nor stay.
They were born as companions
To drink my imaginary tea,
Or brush my hair, or whisper secrets
In the dark, to sing to me.
They were never meant for fancy dress
For beards to appraise their structure
They were never woven
To resist such puncture,
But just to keep me company
Just to tell the truth,
When honesty became something
More than I could do.
Ill-prepared for such critique,
Such stringent demands,
But they have fulfilled their calling;
We have grown together, hand in hand.
In all my days of wandering,
Wending through water and wood,
For every move I made I
Mustered what courage I could,
Closing my eyes, and holding my breath
Putting foot, by foot, to ground
And while my fear was never lost,
Some little bravery was found.
On the outskirts of each town,
I buried my farewells.
Just enough courage to leave them,
But never enough to tell
And once I left a city,
I cut it from my map,
Because there was never any forward,
If there was ever any back.
All the friends I found along the way,
I left littered on every street,
Because the brave are always advancing,
The brave do not retreat
But each friend spoke into my heart,
And all their words remained,
And all my tiny footfalls
Left the echoed words unchanged.
And every word begged me
To change my wandering ways,
And every time they welcomed me
To make a home- to Stay.
Still I continued headway,
Step, by step, by step,
Until, in shock and wonder,
I found those who could accept
All my failed goodbyes,
And the worst I can be.
Friends who superseded,
Who survived as family.
Now in all my many travels,
And ever did I roam,
Nothing took more courage
Than learning to come home.
How blessed I’ve been to live this life,
Constant as the ocean swells,
And churns, and ebbs as well
Eroding the sands of time.
What happy collisions I’ve had
Inside these currents
With propellants and deterrents
Who swim alongside.
In these frothy waters,
This soup-bowl of brine,
I’ve breathed the divine
And swallowed the rest.
When these mighty waves of salt
Wash me upon the great white shore,
When I can eat the sands no more,
I will leave behind my shell,
And, oh, the stories it could tell.
These are Godless times.
We write Him out of His own history,
Condemn Him for our crimes
And celebrate His mystery
As our innovation.
We are a Godless people
Who do not work the field,
But eat our bellies full
Of everything that appeals
To our wandering wisdoms
And desires.
Hope is the flower that never blooms
Relentless rain drenches the roots,
Thick stalks reach the heavens
While leaves unfurl and flute
The petals wait in a fetal cocoon.
Pluck it, or tend it, anticipate
In a breathless storm
Defending the defenseless
Awaiting the vivid and worn
To bloom, to justify the eternal wait.
How dark the struggle, the sorrow,
The dim days of man’s persistence
Born in blood and water
To a pathless existence,
A rocky ascent through
Briars and thorns,
Fists and the forgotten
Sorrow numbed, joy mourned,
Dumb when questioned,
Deaf when told
The blessing of life is
Growing old.
Wrinkle and fade,
Ebb away, but time
Is all the gift of man.
Death, our crime,
Weighs heavy on our histories.
How dank our intentions,
Turned inward, turned downward,
Too lurid to mention
But never unknown
Until love interrupts.
How sharp the contrast
The breath of God
From now, from ages past
In deep elixir swallows
To soothe the wounds
The fears and fallows
Of fate and faithlessness.
Sounds of summer lingering
Though day is fading fast
Leap chirping through my window
As wild as they are vast,
Perfect days of teeming life
Unmuted and unmasked,
But silence falls too soon,
Too soon the heat is passed
And another winter’s cast.
I speak
My voice along my tongue
Shaping words, shaping sound
Expelled again by eager lungs,
But changes form and drifts to ground.
I sing
In wispy exhales
Turning to vapor, to cloud, to fog
Dense, frail
As it crawls silent.
I shout,
But only smoke and cough
The quiet wheeze of desperation
Falling down, blowing off
Words like trapped condensation
Wandering muted in the dim hours.
I write again; I smother.
The men who sit atop the world
Always forget it spins,
The towers whereon they perch
Seem tall enough to defend
Until the earth tilts
And top is bottom again.
The men who bear the heavy yoke
And cast their eyes to ground,
Who cannot lift the chin to see
The weight that wears them down
Must always, always remember
God made this dark earth round.
This too shall pass,
We are not bound to the whim of chance-
There is a design as a wise man defined:
God is the great reversal of human circumstance.
viewingcamelot 