Joplin

The heavy air carried a strange silence

And the horizon’s blue was held askance

By the ominous forming of arcus clouds

As if time and place arrived at once - in black shrouds

Ceasing still the very moment that afternoon at 5:27.

 

While death’s long fingers betrayed heaven

And with each gruesome touch - ripped at Joplin’s face.

Leaving scarred destruction in its fetid place.

 

A lone bared tree standing

against a stark landscape

Framing the story of those who survived

and of the loved ones who could not escape.

When terror came to Joplin in the winds

of May 22^nd 2011.

 

Fable: Act Versus Being

At the threshold of the mighty mountain

Held, an old haggard grace of a man,

Upon the nature of his depth

And the why of reasons for breath –

 

When a young traveler with time’s plan

Asked, “Have you been here often?”

 

The wizened climber spoke with quiet

Strength, “Only since time ‘came fiat.”

 

His wasted body bespoke his clear eyes

That held the universe in a small blue orb

Whilst traversing the very edges of form;

Obeying no physical conform.

 

Asked the elder, “Can you absorb

That you are here and forget the whys?”

 

The brash boy replied “Yes, because I am!”

 

The ancient whispered, “The summit’s lamb

conquers the lion who roars but reasons not his tries.”

 

“My words speak of acts - no one denies;

Of conquests and feats to come!”

Declared the youth in firm calm

Assured more so by the lamb’s pleated cries.

 

“Yes indeed, intrepid one, with ambitious eyes,

While she awaits along the steep rise

This mountain has been and will be;

Matters not who staked claim her summit prize;

No one stays there forever with her - unless he dies.”

Spoke the man who cared for the mountain’s face

As he vanished back into his being

And leaving nothing but a trace

Of time to be in.

 

Pure Chaos

 

Neither circles

of endless horizons

moving in senseless

ways around suns

 

Nor sudden drops

or angular rises

of pointless

event horizons

comprise infinite facets

of that - that is pure chaos.

Absolutes and Relatives

Where are there cold absolutes

That have no one relative

To sit with and palaver

Or ponder upon

Of the infinite or the quantum point;

Or a designate place;

Or an ethereal blackness

That ever finds nothingness

Yet may cover everything.

Hest - chaos bespeaks each; one.

YowaYowa

The floating girl whose feet

would not have any contact

to the cold concrete

nor would she abide any contract

with the laws of laden physics

but instead proved feats

beyond twinkle toes fleets

as she flew like ancient mystiques.

poem inspired by:
yowayowa camera woman diary

Peace in Storm’s Way

 

I traveled the wide expanse of my trouble seas

Upon a ship fashioned together by northern pine

Forms that struck the skeleton gunwales;

Standing the phantasmal forecastle

Of good intentions and high desire.

 

Three solitary Carolina timbers

Pivot the masts with holy triangular sails.

Whipping against the winds

Of change; driven by the forces

Of fear -

 

Straining against the ropes of priori

And knotted in confusion and compromise.

The bowsprit piercing through the long night’s

Headwinds and further into the storm’s dark eye;

A stare from the depths of the mortal maelstrom.

A fury screaming out from hell’s – abyss.

 

Until time’s hands placed me alone

Upon the warm sands of heaven’s beach;

A saving stillness turning the darkness

Into salvation’s quietness.

And calmed all torments to match the blue

Of the deep waters;

The blue

Of a timeless sky.

Storms, Harbors and Straits

 

The storms crept in and took their familiar place.

Their silent fury darkening the eyes with a deep void

While their cold breath stilled all mannered words.

Yet thoughts raged and ebbed; erupted and imploded;

Despaired and relented; gripping tightly unto insanity.

 

Desperately alone and dissolutely falling into false sleep,

Slowly swirling away to a madness of the mirrors,

Her face dissolving; her eyes evolving into strangeness.

Until in the end, she stood alone with all her dreams.

 

Fastened at the neck she must hasten

Unto the darkness - she wears more in black

And understand less the path back.

 

Her silence leaves a shattering sound.

Time has no friends because it never waits

For anyone - may they be in calm harbor or –

in dire straits.

Lilith's Song of Prayer

The cold gray day in foreboding

Whispers, “Walk with me

Unto waters of the ancient seas

Where wanders gather; long to see;

 

‘For the long night - is eroding

The light - deep within inner eye.”

 

The silent sounds of frigid bells – in still;

To a time in place where souls vie

Waiting the albatross to speak, “Lie

Down into black water’s beds.  Nigh!

Repose into an eternal idyllic chill

To be consumed by essence’s swirling motion.”

 

Oh, how enchanting lines of a withering night

bridge the voids between the iron gates of will

And the self-indulgent shreds of good-ill.

 

Even as haunting wails of death’s song shrill

As nightly beasts waltz with demons in rising fright,

Lilith’s celadon eyes pierce the colorless light

 

“Sleep deep until the sweet dawn rises in full emotion.”

 

Her feathered breath warming the longest cold;

As irrepressible life moves – dropping below the buried fold

To reign once more over truth that need not be told.

 

“Rise sweet prince to the highest sight

Where earth and sky keep neither in hold.”