The 12:01 Train

The train leaves exactly each midnight

Never returning to the outbound track

Yet, completing the daily cycle - there and back.

And thus, satisfying the exacting schedule’s finite.

Linear reason an obliquity of time.

While at each destination and arrival stop

Memories wait to jump on or drop

Off the eccentric dimensions – cars filled without rhyme.

Whether travelers ride along to destiny’s byway

Is never a certainty until each ticket is taken.

And, whom is left at the platform; forsaken -

Is apparent to only those holding on to a shared betray.

A lone whistle’s call pierces thru veils of stillness

As time bends and folds across the spectrum’s light

Exposing expectation and reality to free flight.

The station’s twelve clocks strike time - to oneness.

Castles of Where

This lovely child built her castles

With strings, ribbons and balloons

Each delicately tied with innocence

So to float -

free

In a realm

Where all night fears

and tears are shed ...

Where ancient screams

and dreams are lost with morning’s mist...

Where angry straps

and gentle wraps are remembered...

Where imposing portals

and mortals are won.

Where dissonant time

and soothing rhyme are redeemed.

River

River, where do you wind

When your deep waters flow to find

The mysteries you seek?

River, is the distant sea a freak

To your fascinating eyes

Or will it torment your cries?

River, why do the skies

Above grace your way

To a destined day?

River, I wish we could stay

When the streams were innocent

But alas, the urgings remain unspent.

The Eyes of An I

Thin pallid eyes lost at the infinite

Threshold...

Veil the paned windows

Hazing over in opaque pain;

While the rooms within

Fuse in burning fires

Yet...

The hearth’s cold and grey ambers,

Once radiant ideas

That created dreams

Of starry skies,

Remain; coals of fond memories-

In wisps of smoke

Over an ever eroding foundation.

Eyes wide open ebbing shut

At the closing horizon.

End of the Line

The place, at the end of the line,

(Where indifference comes to forget

And ambition frets with regret)

Exists outside the reality of time

And yet, lives within calendars filled with crosses

So to carefully note each and all the losses

That begin and then returned to find their fate

At the end of the line - where dreams wait to wait.

Never Look Back

“Never look back.”  I have always said,

Believing that the now is best  instead...

Or that by looking forward, reason will be pried

From the unyielding arms of expectation.

If truth be held and tried,

Then saying goodbye is the affectation

That holds this heart from the desperation

Of being alone in a vast sky empty of dead.

There Is A View From My Window

There is a view from my window

Where I can see the strait.

Autumn’s burnt  and rust colors have fallen

Upon the empty maize fields stricken fallow

The harvest is done; the feast has fate

Of winter’s chilled breathe to await.

The glass panes are ornate with crystal flake

That belie a silent death’s chilled mellow

 And who shall last out – a prayer’s hallow

Held forever; carved upon a stone’s date.

Blessed are those that find Spring’s state

Where the  greening snake shall birth in callow

Understanding of proper place or date

That will soon meet the season’s goodly spate.  

 Where the rivers shall rage swollen

Against the banks, rich in golden yellow,

As all the ships will come to harbor straight-

I shall then hesitate; for my mate is to wait.

There is a view from my window

Where I can see the strait.

Projections, Progressions and Transgressions

We’ve arrived at this place in the dimming woods

When all the rules and directions are poised projections;

Mere composites of the hopes and dreams

And as such ...

Complex progressions

Of the little things that were once won and lost; it’s understood

Control  is out of touch –

And while the path ahead seems

Twice crossed with youth’s  transgressions

The exit is clearly a faith in circles and dimensions .

Carol

The mighty Oaks stand tall over the woods;

Protecting the garden and the woman who tends -

It is understood ...

She mends.

She holds a small acorn

(A promise of Fall)

Upon her gentle hand -

There is no forlorn

She is grand.

Within the acorn – a journal

Of hope from peril -

She is eternal

She is Carol.

In Company of Words

Words...

In small gatherings

Arranged for afternoon tea -

Are poetic acquaintances

For the moment.

Words...

Amassed in volumes

And chapters of life’s full course -

Are prose friends

For the day.

Words...

Read in leisure

Casually invite thoughts -

To a life together

For all tomorrows.

Falling into Falling

The night’s heavy weave of entanglements

Wear well against the cold hard truths in the air.

The multi-colored shawl wrapped around the neck

Hangs - when a stumble finds falling

Then falling finds oblivion’s noose tighten.

The music’s rhythms and beats enchanting

Reason to embrace the beguiling dancer

To dance across the velveteen skies

Until the night’s falling pulls away

The stars and the light into the darkness of falling.

A-Wake

Awake morning there is a day

Burgeoning the innocent horizon-

As the long night’s burdens lay

Tracks and scars along the arm

And reason escapes without pay

Leaving a void of space and time;

While a warrior sleeps with father’s harm.

The mirror on the wall awaits with reflections.

The doors that do not open - promise revelations.

Though they each reveal  a face painted in contradictions.