Dream 687

We danced last night on a white gleaming snowflake
As the haf-moon played across a field
I heard some melody playing in the background
Soft and low, I didn’t know the tune
It could have well only been in my ears
We walked in the woods after it beckoned to us
Following its shimmering leaves wet with desire
Deeper into the
Glen
You kissed me gently and long
I felt the heat of your lips moving just below mine
You wore gold, I silver – I think
Pre-raphael empire waistcoats and ribbons
If there’d been a stream it wouldn’t have mirrored
Delight
It transversed well beyond any of that
A blink and a flutter, a smile and a stutter
There was not time for a chorus
How long did this last?
An instant at best
But it was a best instant at that

Once More Into The Breach

He walked up stream during the noon-day rush
Looking down on the walkway he saw
The crumbled receipt sitting on the cold sidewalk
I’ve been fading for years
My cells translucent, my voice a whisper,
I’m a memory in others
Something in the past lodged in some synapse
People look through and past me
No one hears me anymore
They ask me the same questions over and over
I’m no longer part and parcel in my own life
Not yet invisible, just an outline
This is something I did moving into the background
I’ve been slogging through the swamp for...
The muck is pulling at my feet trying to swallow me
The thick black water offers no reflection
It’s dark overhead and the sun seems lost
I’m forcing myself through dense dark underbrush
But I get glimpses of patches of pale light ahead
I fight for steps, one in front of the other
Feeling like the faded ink on the crumbled receipt
He knew he was different
He didn’t need to wait on the wind to move
He could create his own breeze and continue on
As he stepped forward into the fray
Smiling

Ancestor Dance

I saw my ancestors last night
They were standing around outside the wall of a castle
Waiting
(This surprised me, because for the longest time
I was sure that I was, in a previous life, in Hannibal's army
Following the elephants over the Alps
Helping to fertilize the countryside)
I was pretty sure that they weren't waiting for me
But I was looking down on them
Not because of any social status I had acquired
But, from the wall above them
I seemed to have been tethered to the outer
Walls - Like a poor man's Prometheus
I started worrying about my liver
Below me were all manner of men and women
These were people responsible for the genetic materials
That made me
Whatever uniqueness I was was from the combinations of those
Before the stone wall
As I watched them drift off into the mists
(It must have been English heaths, why not–It was my dream and it beat the
Shitty Alps)
I felt as though my tethers were snapping one at a time as they left, looking
Back over their shoulders as they walked away
Rather than a fear of falling
I knew that once they were gone
Or forgotten
I would drift off
Not tied to earth or the past or
Connected to the future
Set adrift in the air like the ether
Unattached
Sharing both ultimate freedom
And eternal entrapment

Death in Pumpkin Time

I'll just take this small one, no is looking
The day is so clear and almost warm
A harvest day delight
I saw the field from the road and
Mama always said what good eating
A fall pumpkin makes
We can use the seeds to make our own
Patch next year
What's that noise?
Oh no, he has a gun
I'll run like a rabbit to ground
But the vines grab at my legs
And the sandy soil holds my feet
As this damn pumpkin will weigh me down
The fence is just a hundred feet way
What's that burning feeling in my back
I'm going down
The pumpkin splats on the ground
I'm going down
Over a gourd?
I can taste sweet pumpkin juice
So it was worth it

Paper, Rock, Scissors

The emaciated singer sat bent over with his legs crossed
His eyes sat back in dark sockets
Hands shook as he tried to smoothly lift a cigarette to
His lips
“Why do they taste like formaldehyde?”
His long thought sealed doors tore open in the
Deep, dank, dark night, oozing dreams of images
In black and gray, the fog of recognition just beyond a light
All of the old daemons with stale breath tumbled out
Sprung loose
Running amok again, gleeful at their freedom
Screaming failure, pointing out flaws
Grimacing smiles eating out conscienciousness
Ingratiating themselves into all seven synaptic layers
“It’s not the big ones that are hard to fight
“It’s the little niggling little ones that creep up
“And in stick in your skin’s pores
“And whisper doubts in your ears
“Causing burning tears to well up
“Longing for the quiet and blankness of nothing
“I’d slit my wrists, but I don’t want to leave a mess
“Poor, poor, pitiful me; weeping for no one
“I’ve indeed outlived a usefulness”
America, wake up...
Our youth are dying the death of million small cuts
It’s not just the dead on a battlefield drawn in some sand colors
But those whose values left vague
Like a drunk who stumbles into the restroom
Starring confused between the mirror and the urinal
Wondering whether he came in to pee or wash his face
Pyramids were not built from the top down
The golden point can only shine if the blocks at the bottom
Stand strong and hold firm
Where are our stone cutters who understand the importance
Of a clean hued block
The daemons have hefted it pockmarked
Pollution has ate into its once clean lines so that it teeters
Just waiting for some final push
Until a dust puff and gone

Blue Dragon

She walked in with an assurance of ownership
Wearing a red dress to match
It flowed from the happy death of silk worms
Giving their lives for a greater cause
He sucked in a breath like it was his last
And his eyes feasted and nearly exploded from desire
Following the easy rhythm that she created with that walk
He was a three-piece wearing broker
She took stock on trade
As they met, it was a mongoose sizing up a cobra
Waiting to do the tango to death
Dinner served as an appetizer
A pre-limb before dessert...
On the other side of town
He pulled up to curb in his five-year old Ford
It shook before it finally turned off
The driveway was full of bikes and toys
She stirred things as she sat them down to dinner
They pecked on the cheeks and hoped that
They would ask each other about their day, later
It was a full-contact meal with kids chittering and chattering
About...
She told him that Mom could watch the kids Saturday
Early
If they wanted to go catch a movie
He said that would be nice if there was something
She wanted to see
It was his turn to clean up with the help of the seven-year old
It was her turn to wash up the twins
Night settled as so did the house
Tomorrow she’d lunch at the Blue Dragon

A Rowboat At Sea

A few notes from a melody so long ago a favorite
A catch-phase that drifts through the air that once caused laughter
A partial memory half thought that drifts like snowflakes in a storm
I see the pale blue of your eyes reflected in a puddle
I hear that lilt of your voice from an overheard conversation
I awake and a dream lingers that we shared
Half asleep I feel your warm breath on my pillow
And see the outline of your hair
But I know that there is no dent in the mattress
I know that the space on the sheets is still cold
There is no voice that can call me
I only hear echoes of my own
No soft skin to reach out to
There is no “honey” when I’m home
Yeah, the eyes that I see now are not the eyes of reproach,
Disappointment
That look of displeasure
I don’t hear the disdain in your remembered voice
I don’t feel for the hand that pulled away
This wound is still open and bleeds
No matter how often its stitched
I try and keep it covered and hid
I’m not sure that it will ever heal
No matter how long I keep licking it
My eyes well up when I touch it
When I’m alone after dark
I miss you so deeply

Haiku’s for You

A gentle breeze turns the leaves away from reaching towards the sun
Late afternoon in a damp field
Where the wheat has gone fallow, wild
No longer a home for grouse or pips waiting to feed on
Hairy heads of barley
The stream’s water slowly moves silt along its bed catching on rocks
With a memory of children playing on the bank
And trout holding their own against the flow
Waiting for flies to land in pools in which they waited
There had been famine hiding within the furrowed land
Moisture rose along the lines of the damp grass tops
A single copse of broken branched trees
Knowing more than nature should have allowed
A lone brave bird called out
There is no answer
Men had once hid among those now silent trees
Waiting
An advancing group of boys didn’t see the sunset
They last looked upon the flash
And felt the burning pain rip through their tunics
Worms are the only thing fed by the fields as fall approaches
Somewhere wolves brought down a doe and her faun
And eat ripped flesh on the bone
The pack will move into the hills to winter
When the wind ceases at sundown
The tree’s leaves will again turn to what sun light that is left

Letters from Afar

Turning from black to white
Or fading into gray
A moist lover’s kiss turning dry
Music fading over the horizon
Smoke drifting over the dim lamp
He walks away from shadows cast by a car’s lights
Muttering something about shaving
As he reaches up to touch his face without thinking
That single star in house’s window
Catches his eye
She’s most likely sitting watching some movie
There is no rain
There may be clouds, but he can’t see the sky
He’s not looking
The shadow that had followed him
Began to crawl out in front
As he silently passed under a street light
He thought of the cards in solitaire
A black number on a higher red card
And he saw what he needed
On the three that he turned over
The black nine lay behind the red seven
He could cheat, but was that really winning

One More Wet Kiss

He heard the soft crunch of the frozen snow underneath his feet
He saw the light flickering from the parking lamp
Lighting the edges of the falling flakes
He bent down and felt the cold ground become wet at his touch
He could smell the crisp air that he saw briefly before him
He knew what was growing within him
And it wasn’t a sense of well being
She whispered into a gentle wind
As gleaming snowflakes melted on her skin
Her large moist eyes were from Zhavago
Longing for long forgotten references
The beautiful mask that she used
No longer held back the stratosphere
It had been eaten away by acid rain
Pretty was not her adjective anymore
Time tested came to mind
The color in her eyes had faded with her time
However, there were years left in her sight
He wanted to replace this winter wonderland
With the sandy beach that they had last visited
Who had said what two weeks before
Didn’t matter there
The day’s heat had matched the night’s
Geckos lightly running through the shrubs
Slightly making the leaves move
Mirrored the way that they had laughed at his stupid jokes
Standing together on the edge of the peer
Watching the sun play with reflections on the sea
Of well being and the sense that they had shared
That at that moment all would be as lasting as their
Kiss

Screaming in the night again

note: sorry for the language, but ...

Each cell screams out in pain
Madness sits just behind my tearing eyes
She came to me again last night
Dancing on the white moonlight
In gossamer clothes
Her hair was soft and long
Framing her face in shadows
Her smile invited me to join her
But her eyes were not blue like a Carolina sky
They were steel gray and hard
Tearing into my broken soul
When I reached for her she was gone
Faster than an instant
I stood gazing over the precipice into black
Nothing
Geez, he thought, as he put the book, Rushing Into Madness, aside
That guy is fucked up
Why would anyone read this shit

For Abby

I don’t know what enabled fates had you enter through my doorway
You were wanted and wished for
Dragged into existence
Kicking and screaming, colicy, jaundiced, days and nights mixed up
Setting you on the window ledge
Watching you sleep, just to check
Only nursing, fearing that whole summer because I could not
Your young lungs true tested all of those long days
Then
Clear big pale green eyes, always watching
Your fear or hatred of water
Bath time battles, like trying to wash a cat
Screams rushing through open windows
Hoping that the neighbors wouldn’t call authorities
Then
Sandy hair soaking in the sunshine, glowing
Stroller walking for hours
Parenting by diversion, hoping beyond hope that I’d open your mind
Reading you just one more story
Somewhere-time musical notes entwined with out shared DNA
Bonded us together, a life long love
Holding your hand the first day of kindergarten
No hesitation as you let go to walk in through that door
That screaming past seemed so long ago
Then
Skipping around the country, you were willing to travel on
Even as your mother and brother weren’t
Social, open to new friends, who were always your best ones
Long haired little girls, smiling as through the sun lived in your teeth
Dancing, swimming, gymnastics, the beginning of a full-contact life
Good-byes and hello’s
Then
You shot the basketball into the hoop
You made all of the stars in school
Your open acceptance of me when your friends asked you why
I was not like the other daddies
You scored all of the firsts from grade school
And this was just the first of firsts
Repeated in high school, repeated in college
Then
It all seems fast-forwarded, your beaming open acceptance
Continue on large pale-eyed traveler
Seeking, searching, questing, learning,
We’re all a better people because of your existence