Buzzing here and floating there,

No conscience, heart, nor tether.

You fill your guts on all my guts

And love this perfect weather.

You bob and weave, you little wretch

To seek your bloody booty.

Your little pin-prick savag’ry,

Your loathsome call of duty.

To squash and maim and flatten you,

‘tis all my heart’s desire.

But conquer one and ten more come

With no plans to retire.

And when I stand at heaven’s gate

My journey to unravel,

Says God, the Lord, the judge of all,

“mosquitoes were my gavel.”

My previous poem, Waiting was the first of the series. Here is the second in an oncoming barrage of poetry culled from my recent vacation back to my home stomping grounds in and around Calgary, Alberta.

These stands of poplar stand,

alone and stolid and sure;

rejecting all

but light and warm and good.

Their sullen song, languid and low,

lulls my mind from sure to still,

from still to rest,

from rest to rise once more –

to stand.

Their hands upraised, entwining fingers

united in their thoughts;

committed to their cause.

Here, no injustice nor impatience find –

only singing.

Shoulders, steeped and round,

massaged by sun of warming, come.

Toward a future point of reference

a heart sits still, its mourning not yet done.

Below deck, crouched in the basement

of this soul, a candle flickers, reluctantly warm,

the only light in this small room.

Crouched, alone in this auditory poise,

tired muscles quiver, weary from waiting,

taut from this long and painful silence,

outrageously shouting their demands –

“be still

and still, be.”

I love Oregon. Whenever I come here from my home in Washington state I instantly feel at home. The following short poem is intended as a word picture of my conversations with God in, through, around and because of, the Oregon forest.

Forest Conversations

Darkling and twisted in orgiastic biospherean splendor,

the forest tweaks the shoulders of the mountain

and turns her head to speak of things unknown.

The hump-ed shoulders of mornings’ mild and misty manner,

spreads like green butter before the feet of day.

I can hear her whispers, stirrings on the woodland floor

where creatures run and leavings left behind from

windy hollows and sapling’d soldiers standing still

in disciplined ranks en-mossed in jade

and rustic, ruined wonder.

Had I been here before, there might not have been

these turning, tree-worn thoughts of a day

fit for sharing.

Knowing

Seldom have I felt this low,

my voice, still stuck inside.

A soul, left alone,

reveals its need

to suffer,

rejoice;

be.

Old for New

Let’s trade our foreign cargo:

our death, oblique and strange,

tagged for redemption,

but stirred to know

the story,

re-lived,

new.

Gift

Satisfaction guaranteed

to broken hearts that need

all that sorrow brings;

a song to sing,

promising

death to

death.

Presence

Let’s walk on distant shorelines,

ragged, rough and romping;

nuanced as the night

for we should not

assume that

we’re not

there.

Breakfast

I ask you, “do you love me?”

You tell me that you do.

I ask you twice more.

You answer me.

My answer?

Broiling

fish.

Swollen palettes, satiated on mystery meat, bread and corn

husked beside the red swing-set after splish ‘n splash at noon.

Summer’s silly sprinkler dance anoints the day

with laughter fit for kings’ tables finely festoon’d.

Checkers played with pennies and monopoly pieces,

and, later, fake dollar bills found buried in the car seats.

Dinner table taunts from Mom and Auntie June

to remove from there our sad and smelly feet.

Now when moon and sun compete for sky,

I chuckle one last sigh before I hit the hay.

My buddy’s fresh, new farts remind me

how soon, in restful sleep, he’ll pay.

Sometimes, when pompous stars have fin’lly come and gone,

and, creeping on the ledge beside my window, at this height,

I wonder when, once more we might revel in  

this feast of quotidian delights.

The home of a neighbor of a close friend of ours recently burned to the ground. This is a tragedy of the worst kind for anyone. Moreover, it was a place that housed troubled adults. Although no lives were lost, a home and a hope, at least for a time, were.

Sing, little ones. Sing, for the music still plays on…

Strike up the chord from rubbled keys,

fill up your ears on scrawny knees,

push through your threadbare notes with ease,

let the music play on.

For good or ill the band still played,

Titanic-deck’d no songs fore-stayed,

reduced to ash and dust parade,

yet the music played on.

When all has shuttered up within,

let  lonely hearts bestirred begin,

to harp, to trump, to violin,

for the music plays on.

And you, with your most treasured fears,

ensconced in burnt and golden tears,

a lilting note from God full cheers,

and the music played on.

“…and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God.” Isaiah 43:2-3