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.

Friend or Fiend

 What cost has this casted belonging?

It depends on your reflection of it;

Does it suit your need to hold on to vanity

Or perhaps, a collectible for your insanity?

Do not be rude or bid ill wit!

What value is there in this reflection?

This golden alabaster of attraction?

Forgive the query – no need to have a fit.

Merely wondering if the mirrors reflects

Your worth or if it merely add more affects.

Perchance, did this alabaster mirror ever pit

The hands of death as they became the eyes

And in the mind, the reflections of seven score of lies?

Were I a jester or pretender – I could say in whit.

However, I am merely your humble assayer

And thus, fear not what you see – you are the slayer!

I shall wait then for you to find me a quiet sit -

As this requires a very naked image

Of the forms and thoughts of old age.

You will find privacy in that mirrored tit

Then what hath happened will become apparent

That thee - is more ethereal than transparent.

Dance to the Stillness

 

Should troublesome times beset upon thee

Stealing halcyon days from diary

Then is when one must swallow all fury

And wait for a heartbeat to be jury

To the paradox that is the stillness

Of movements in the deep dance of darkness

Where turmoil churns loudly the emotions

And quietude of the deepest oceans.

With every breath there is silent pause

A musical note; a poem’s silent cause.

Stillness implies chaos and abides life

As floating in peace or beset in strife.

    Tranquility is a war of the heart

    and mind; only stillness may choose the part.

Sonnet 218

 

There are reasons to set off to the seas

Or travel across continents searching 

for dreams; following adventures in breeze.

Every Spring’s vow is full of hope bursting

To grow; to prosper in nature’s harbor.

 “If you are going to San Francisco” 

Wear flowers and dance in total ardor;

Summers are long - so dress in calico.

And in the winter, when the currents change;

As winds race across the cradle’s holding

The days may turn into years as strange

As a vertical carousel’s folding.

A classical molding into a stage

Of waxing and waning forces containing

All things inward - away from the sea’s wage;

For the bay seems still while storms are churning…

        

        Never intended to be here always. 

Now the sea beckons: saying come away.

A Blue Planet Aquarium

 

‘Tis there not a  magnificent world for thee

Little goldfish - with your ancient and delicate fins?

Has confinement been good for the refinement

of the cyprinidae? (sa-prini-dee)

Oh, my great fearsome beast that owns the sea

Living in matrilineal groups

And through scores of time;

What hath thee more than me? 

My precious little golden key

I know better the planet

Under the sea that speaks across the ages

Far more than you can ever know or see.

Perhaps this is so and only so to be

Because you must consume to suit your mass.

However, I too exist in masses under the sea;

Thus, we are but tiny exotic little things in universal relativity.

Swirl Me into a Fit

 

My name is Kakawa and I am ancient.

I am the source of pleasure and taste

And traded for gold around the world

To suit the impulse and mystify the sentient!

My name is Sundae and I am an affection;

Scoops and parts to be a conglomerate of tastes

Blended and added with nuts, bananas, cream

And the finest strawberry; a confectioner’s invention.

Yes, indeed my pretended friend

And if you will swirl my syrups

Around your mounds and peaks

You will then also become the perfect end. 

Oh, my chippy cocoa bean, in full troll

I’m irresistible whether in a dish, cone or bowl

With sprinkles, nuts, licorice  or a cherry top.

My taste is too scrumptious to stop

Only on Sundays as my sweetness, it is told,

Is always good for the young and the old.

Chasing Constance

 

in the mean of the blue 

there known but few true

constants except for the run

to find the infinite one;

for each realm is its own

constant and will traverse home

to return to where the heart waits

for its star-crossed fates.

April's Folly

 

That which slept away

in the warmth of earthy loams

awakens now from the stillness;

from throes of a winter’s stasis.

The clarion of nocturnal and diurnal

voices sing: “Arise  April’s muse of folly!”.

The first point of Aries fires the soils;

And the crownings of purple-yellow crocus.

Serendipity shall dance her fertile favors

upon lachrymose skies - to rain; rain; rain

and fill the streams of supple; flow tangible the rivers;

for a fool is never too far from dreams of Spring.

That love and love of love shall seed

the dormant and vacuous gardens

that his one true yellow flower

becomes a love bouquet for April’s fools.

: Distance :

 

: Distance :

I just stumbled across another colon;

Didn’t see it. Did not even think of it.

Even though its presence is the distance

Where time separates her incremental

Reign of the costly hour

Against the casual minute… 

Why! Oh, why is life stolen?

Didn’t see it. Did not want to speak of it.

What miser chose such a remittance

When no second remains; is it transcendental;

Are sixty spaces spent to own one hour;

Is that : placed to keep right every minute?

We must be humbled by the distance

Between the two dates and the one final dash;

How can that line speak of life’s rhyme?

Our place apart is not a world but a breath.

Didn’t see it. Did not understand it.

And now this : stages the final act.

Look to the watchtower for an existence;

As the bells sound out their keep - in clash

Exulting our congruent nature with time

When mortality and immortality meet at death.

Did not see it. Did not wait for it.

And thus, the colon disappears from the tract.