A Nation of Murmurations

 

A clamor of chatter

a chatter of skeletons screeching

A cloud of longings

a cloud of closings coming

A clutter of chaos closing

a matter of calamity calls

A concentration of condemns

a convention of consensus convenes

A congregation of conventions

a congregation of consenting constituents

A constellation of conditions

a constellation of concerns connects

A filth of finery 

a filth of flies’ flitter

A flight of foul foragers

a flight of opining flags flutter

A gathering of gaudy gods

a gathering of goons & loons

A hosting of harrowed helots 

a hosting horde of horror 

A roost of starlings

a roost of ranting rogues

A scourge of scarlet

a scourge of scoundrels scowling

A vulgarity of violence

a vulgarity of vultures

A vein of pain

a vault of fault

A winsome warrior of wander 

a wonder with words.

The Other Side Poetry Night

 

time has a switch that sets off,

    in all darkness and is a faint light

that brings the bewildered,

                   the beholden

and

                   the benevolent

together

as a family of love.

Time and date is 21 of November

Six-thirty opens the mic!

Paladins!! come to the faint light

And rejoice

the rejoin of poets

And lovers of song.

The River Stigmata

 

in the river

where one must

love floating

beyond; below the blue

while beneath; lower

where the raging draws

one into a vortex; abyss

and calm runs - 

free from the stigma

of drowning

to be free.

The Muse Constance

 

The Muse Constance

A boarding pass on the good ship.

A breath to behold upon the horizon.

Promise of a long and fateful trip

Upon the decorous Steamer – Kismet.

The open sea - calm without strait.

The first dance to celebrate

As the muse plays on into the late

For there is no inevitable to forget.

No eventual; no certainty; no end.

The edge is infinite - beyond the planets;

The stars; the galaxies – the eternity

Of seas where the knowns offend.

‘Tis an infinitesimal flicker of light

Across the timeless dark of existence.

Come my traveling delight

We will dance to the muse Constance.

Terminal - Final

Terminal - Final

“It is terminal…”

The words lingered

As her eyes wavered

At the acceptance

Of such a sentence.

The heart stilled -

And for a moment filled

With ponderous weight

Of the final; of the eventual. It is late

At the terminal stop of await.

She is a beautiful fragile vase

Life is rampant in that lovely face

And her grace is her space

A gift to the crestfallen at her state.

We sit, we laugh and toast against life’s fate.

We bid farewell - until we meet again.

Yet, that word, terminal rumbles its fain!

Shall we wait at the station

Arrival and wonder if damnation?

Or run to the departure gate carrying hopes of redemption.

At the window’s ledge high above 

Heaven’s vestibule sits a white dove 

Calling home lost souls and spirits of love.

Many have come and gone through this place

Where young and old wait in pain or grace

For a last-second of song or prayer

To save one more breath; one last sayer

Before the departure reaches time.

 Ahh! Anne’s beautiful eyes find eternal rhyme!

While we travelers – we must cross the same terminal line.

   

For friend Anne - rest in peace.

Terminal

 

It is terminal…

The words lingered

As her eyes wavered

At the acceptance

Of such a sentence.

The heart stilled -

And for a moment filled

With the ponderous weight

Of final, of eventual. It is late.

At the terminal stop of await.

She is a beautiful fragile vase

Life is rampant in that lovely face

And her grace is her space

A gift to the crest fallen at her state.

We sit, laugh and toast against life’s fate.

We bid farewell - until we meet again.

Yet, that word terminal echoes its fain.

Shall we wait at the station

Arrival and wonder if damnation

Or run to the departure gate and redemption.

Particle Steps and Time Waves

 

The particles made their pulse

and the side of positive

assuaged the opposite negative,

“It is time to wave.” spoke Impulse.

His weary eyes need to feed the mind;

wondering by seeking the dormouse

who lives there – near the old farmhouse.

In the moraine - where mother’s flowered blouse

changes and is changing everything in every way

while in the mind it remains the same byway.

There by the old wooden gate - a white rabbit;

the defiant lake sits so still – quietly,

nary a ripple to note waves of tranquility.

His way is old, while his mind converses gently,

“Why the path will end where it began – satiety”.

And he gathers himself.  He collects the panoramic scenes

Of the long horizon that now approaches his time;

a fence line runs by the abandoned barn - in between.

Frame by frame, a kinetoscope story in rhyme

retelling of life approaching the vanishing point

as hesitant steps near a path that says: Wrong Way.

He says to the hawk and to the mourning dove,

“I have been this way – always, always gathering more love”.

He says to the wind, “until tomorrow concedes

and it becomes today – I will know where it leads”.

On the other side of the other side

Crossing bridges that sit aging in the narrow

path along the way and too, crossings of harrow

that is in the mind and just as suspended.

As a breath, just before the last second has ended,

Whispers, “remember me today and tomorrow”.

Page 1

 

Page 1

 

There was never a first page.

However much it is written;

However more its passages

Are scribed into this diction.

 

Whatever may be said

Or whichever line is read

One will answer to the dead

Gaiety that sits now - silent and sad.

 

For in the realm of silence

Is found the coats of loneliness.

So very light to wear upon heavy shoulders.

Yet too a burden to set down – anywhere.

 

Too alone to be distracted.

Much too busy a gala to wait.

And so, the walk is a feather’s tract.

However, sleep will have a date.

 

Along the ways there is a path

To be found even when all is lost

While the story asks, “At what cost”.

Stumbling and falling into self-wrath.

 

The first page says it was fate.

The last page will ponder,  “Why”.

And the rainbow choir sings of glory

While the eulogy exalts the quiet face.

 

Signs

There are signs that may warn.

While some simply say, “Turn”.

Some signs are easy to read.

While others can mislead -

To go to a wrong place

Because somehow the face,

The eyes covet, is torn.

Which portends can one believe?

In dreams, simulations are confounding notes to learn.

While in the tea leaves, they might foretell

A curse in-wait or of fortunes to sell.

Signs can be hidden in plain sight

In the brightness of the sunlight.

Alas, the crosses along the road say: Aggrieve.

Read the sign; sign the line; don’t resign.

Life can turn on a twist or soar upon a yearn.

See what is there and sense what is coming.

Grasp hold the rudder; ride a storm’s warning.

The cave’s symbols tell of early plights of rhyme

As true as Einstein’s relative time -

Where paradox is the sign.

A place where stones mark a last conquest

The inscription explains, “Here lies the author in rest”.

And there too, are all his thoughts scattered in books

Found in libraries; and ancient stores; and in revered nooks.

A necropolis of dead poets and other rummies fame forgot;

A cemetery is a wonderful place for symbols of her -

Of Athena’s rules of knowledge that are conforms to digest.

Is the content merely fermented ignorance?

Once perceived true; imitations of menace and peace;

Redemptions promised in the old manuscripts – if, sins cease.

Woe! Consummation is the key to absorption and ease

Because heaven and hell are fantasy and chains to fate.  

The objects are beast and man set in murals mimicking life on a cave’s crease.

And the dancing shadows… 

                            signs of a sorcerer’s inference.

Poetry of Flamenco

 

That rhythmic steps can hold time

speaks of form that is bold;

telling of sensuality in the sublime

with hands that clap old

romantic legacies in dance

art form; expressions of gypsy lore.

Listen - the syncopation grips in trance

as movements in seduction tap the floor.

(Image: Flamenco dancer Antoñita Singla performing in 1965)

Eulogy for a Wheelbarrow

 

Eulogy for a Wheelbarrow

She sat, as always, in her natural beauty

With alluring gems and minerals to offer

A grand scene beyond a painter’s brush.

Her mountains caress the blue from the sky

And her playful winds send the galloping clouds.

While brooks and streams turn rivers into channels

Of life and more - flowing to the seas.

Then enterprise found Nature as a prize

Sitting to be taken and settled to mine

Away her wealth and her beauty for the sin

Of wealth beyond survival and for ambition.

Alas, they were careless and lost paradise,

Leaving strewn a wheelbarrow; abandoned dreams.

For the quest of beast and all nature – it is lost.

(Photo by Julie Munroe)

Expire

If you were to expire -

What relic could keep an empire;

What moment-of-change must transpire 

That contains such a wretched – choir.

If a candle were to expire –

What place should be the empire;

What endless darkness must transpire;

What voice shall become a holy – choir?

If you wish to expire;

Should too -  the unholy empire;

Should all your words also transpire?

For the endless silence shall quiet the choir!

If Father Time refused to expire

Should we seek throughout the empire;

Should we see that curse and glory are about to transpire;

Should we make the sage and the obtuse become the – choir.

If Truth’s keys and noted-emboldens flourish upon the choir

And the old kingdom remnants – transpire;

Shall there stand a new realm - of an ethereal empire?

Pray - pray for the day;  for time is set to expire.