The Good Ship Forbearance

In seas of turmoil the good ship forbearance

Strained her bow against the rising depths

As lower forces assumed a threatening coherence

Between the angry wave’s of tilting oceans 

And the menacing skies in lilting motions.

The masthead standards violently swaying lose

Releasing enmities hidden below the deck’s breadths

As the ship’s foundations lurched about

In chaotic spasms - severing the fastenings and screws;

Bringing a flinch to the captain’s eye and a compromising doubt.

Whirling winds spinning around the vessel’s foursquare bearing

 With the after-house facing tumultuously across each compass point bereft

Of calm viewpoint, purpose or direction.

The morning blue sky promise now accursed perdition;

the storm’s blackness consuming the day’s good faring.

The storm’s surging forces implode into a convex

Proximal center and thus, swallowed into the deep sea floors

Where calm and peace reside without perplex

Of expectations nor possessive notions to any shores.

The quietude rises to consume the ship’s abnormal; allowing forbearance to forget.   

A One Way

The train leaves; moving away quickly ...

Sitting alone in the front car

facing south to feel the warmth

as the sun's rays propose their vitality

(thru the opaque glass)

upon the exposed skin

and heat the frozen fields

so the patches of winter's white covers

 relent their long hard grip;

succumbing to the inevitable Spring

brimming below the frost lines

 waiting to burst through in response

to the call of the equinox

as it reaches its annual cycle

to the vernal tipping point

spilling empty life’s vessel

so to ready the next full measure.

Where we are bound; is a one way.

 

 

 

Redemption in Destruction

The photograph said: “Look, a dead merganser upon the ice”

 

The bitter coldness brings to focus lithe certainties

While, at the same time, exposing deep frailties

Of expectation and desperation

Each is an impersonator lingering at the edge

Waiting the long hard winter’s dredge

To uncover the frozen destruction

And too, to reveal a survivor’s redemption

Though, neither is a curse into hell’s spate

Nor a promise thru sweet heaven’s gate.

 

The poetry said: “Look, life and death aftermaths have a price”