You’ve already jumped,

looking up now is wasted effort.

Look down, there is your destination.

Look in, there is your courage.

Wait, now, for the updraft of your salvation,

easing your unparachuted fall into the beautiful mundane.

Photo from www.barnorama.com

To those who have graced my life with their presence and friendship. You know who you are. My rose-colored sentiment reaches out to touch your faces.

He sits in his den, writing to unseen friends

with fingers deftly reaching out through keyboard strokes

to other faces elsewhere – washing dishes,

rubbing the dog’s belly, changing diapers, making love –

he knows not what.

* * *

Will the clicking sound of these tiny letters

sufficiently churn his insides out? Reconfigure

his heart, itchy and bothered, his

stories, stale and old, too long in storage?

His ideas grown too certain for the pitch and yaw of good friendships?

* * *

Candles burn more quickly in good company,

their scent, unnoticed; their light, unheeded.

But their gentle presence is the necessary accoutrement of delight,

the required prelude to fellowship and laughter

in dimly lit rooms made lighter by other eyes.

* * *

In the intimations of the evening he gives a sigh

and with one last look at a screen, long dark,

he remembers. He steals from the back shelves

a glimpse or two of those he cannot see, rendered pink

in the red and white of dreams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She picks at this and that, her beak sharp, her aim impeccable.

Her friends gather around her, cheering her on, or competing

for last year’s garden’s last release of freshness, slow dying.

 

She forages, undeterred by her bickering counterparts,

intent on stealing what little there is to glean.

Deep and hungry throats extend upward, awaiting

 

what choice morsels, newly culled from the stingy earth

are forthcoming; gathered gifts from a mother’s maw.

From small bits of winter’s old have sprung spring’s new.

 

Here it is we find ourselves,

deciding what goes and what stays

in our frantic efforts to stay the course of time’s uneasy, forward lurch.

 

How easy to stumble over the tiny nests

found hidden under forgotten branches of earlier efforts.

There, life and hubris kiss to produce our next steps.

 

This new precipice, the hungry days of leaning

into a grey wind with unseen destination,

cannot deter this year’s meal from last year’s waste.

 

Photo from www.bbc.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day has nudged me with her prêt-à-porter greetings,

dried flower wish lists fit for nothing more

than the plastic, manikin smiles of little men.

Still, a molded smile sits nicer on the face

than dishonest eye-shadow hiding eyes

looking for their own freedom.

When time has pressed her hand in yours,

take the hint of friendship.

Her loyalty is straight and plumb-line true

but has a short shelf-life.

Speak, or the moment is already gone.

Photo at www.liberatonetwork.com

I’ve been meaning to stretch

these cramped, untested arms

 

halted but ready

to hold these moments.

 

You are there

where once I was

 

there are spatters of blood

on this clock, ticking in remembrance.

 

The shrapnel of leaves

vacated from their secure places

 

invites the lesser flowers

to grow more brazenly

 

no more to bury their faces

but breathe in the new life

 

of death.

Satisfied, full, these sated skies

their grey so whimsical and warm

e’en though with ardor the wind tries

my sallow soul it’s hearth to storm.

* * *

Generous in her briskly breath

an offering of still-born doubt,

reminds me of what is not death

and with strong grace my sadness routs.

* * *

Till now she’s spurned all but love

her bosom warm in shattered sleep,

to wash my brow with rain, above,

and echoes through the cleansing deep.

* * *

And in these moments, damp and dear,

are pressed upon my spirit, warm,

an invitation to mystic, clear,

full brightness of her grey breast, charms.

Photo courtesy of 214wainwrights.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

 

In tiny wisps of veil’d smoke

diffused the light through which I see.

Therein live the treasured folk

of cherished friendship’s filigree.

To enter now is to escape

all notice of redacted scenes

of lithely gotten vineyard grape

all subtle, sparkling red of sheen.

‘Tis later now than when begun

this sauntering down a mem’ry lane

to yet retain my passag’d ones

returned and fullnesses retained.

 

 

Does a kite make sense when all it wants to do is leave?

So let it go.

If up it goes, down it must sometime come,

and when it does, it will have seen much sky.

Blinded by the light at the end of the bar,

his too heavy head bobs and weaves. But, not far

from his warm and worn stool where drinking was best,

sat one he had known, his heart stopped in his chest.

* * *

Hurtling headlong to oblivion’s cave,

one Scotch, one gin, one more chaser to save.

His only-one-more plan for one more last drink

would push away logic, it hurt just to think.

* * *

But severed in time, time and time again

his whispering soul no longer his friend

he turned to adjourn this collective canteen

of invisible friends and the pinball machine.

* * *

He saw his reflection in spilled pools of beer

from everyone else’s love and good cheer

and paused long enough his fate to forestall

the one he had known said, “I’ll be your last last call.”