The Vigil

Wait! There is more waiting here!

Fools that we are - we assign ourselves to time

Of values, measured by sixty increments of line;

We calculate and philosophize about fear.

Albeit, that the sequiturs leave less

While the solipsistic notions take more

Than any single arrogant ego can ever address.

Wait! The crowd is approaching terminal abhor

For the midnight hour is near

And madness shall ensue past the locked door

The barrier is over; the penned mob can gorge;

The waiting is over – let the wildebeest forge;

Trampling past each fallen spender so to feast

And consume the consumers; an incongruous duality.

Wait! The train of conformity leaves promptly at eight.

Scurry along for life does not hold open any gate

Nor will it remember any writer that fails their commute

Thereby leaving the quill, the ink and the paper to sit and mock the mute-

As ceaseless thoughts torture the befuddled and lingering mind

And the open gaze wonders, as blank page; after blank page turns with blind

Eyes that search their darkness;  Ahhh yes, let’s wait for the waiter to serve kindness.

Wait! Youth will be poured into bottles of expectation

So, to measure the forming years; hi son, what is your rating and grade point?

Oh, my daughter, be sure to have fun while you graduate with a valedictorian designation.

And really, don’t worry, the investment for the degree, is how one will anoint

Oneself with the oils of toil and lather up in the soaps of successful mystique.

Thus, the odor of wait is masked and distracted by the roller coaster thrill ride freak.

Note how the waiting lines are full; from birth thru death; the vigil is the anticipation.

Wait for the light

Wait for the sight

Wait for the day

Wait to say

Wait the line

Wait your time

Wait the gate

The gate does not wait

Fate does not the wait

Why did I wait

Now I know my date.

Wait-

Wait-

Wait.

  

   

 

A Relative Point

What is time?

Is it the moon’s hallucinogenic time

of the unicorn?

Or, is it the sun’s sobering time of radiant clarity

that shuns bleary eyes away

from yesterday’s optimisms?

Is it the relative notions of time and space?

Where minutes become hours and towers of hours

Transcending into days spanning more and more years

That then morph into scattered forgotten thoughts

Or misplaced shattered dreams

At life’s end,

As age takes its full measure and payment

Of a full life-

Lived with curious fantasy

Or mired on the stark streets of rue?

Either way, the only point of reference that matters

is the one that is written on the ignoble grave marker:

Stating a beginning date and the inevitable end date;

Where only a name remains to be remembered,

That is, if there is anyone left to light those candles of memory …

perhaps, with an appellation;

maybe, a final self-attribution:

saying, “I am not here any longer.  I am out there in the woods - - yonder”

Matters not, for the trees will whisper the way there

As the leaves explain how breezes can become winds

And how winds can turn into raging storms of destruction;

Leaving seeds strewn across the landscape

Scattered amongst the standings of the old forest

Where seeds can aspire to be more than ripen ovules

While the Mother Tree evokes a sense of community

And a place of comity among the old trees;

That no longer identify with the young diminutive seeds.

However, the songs of the progeny will play on to celebrate

that the grains will grow into the reasons for Mother’s gains

while wondering,

“Why vapid germination without savory temptation?”

When do the degrees of time gather enough space?

Thus, becoming a relative position in the universe;

Thereby also establishing the disposition

that the sun’s juxtaposition

Is where it sets - a past;

Or lies - a future;

And, at this moment, clarity and consciousness

Being the only truth that is – is NOW.

Standing neither as an egoic day

Nor a tortured night

But rather more –

A transcendent self.

Fence Sentry

A cragged post stands a sentry fence

Holding ownership’s flags of forbiddance

Barriers connected with stern barbs and wire

And the medicine man dances the tribe’s dire

For the ranchers hold the land’s sentiment of aridness

With landscapes of ponderous yellow burnt starkness

And the vanishing points are jejune illusions

As are western deserts the home of delusions.

Phote: Brenda Krysh

Proposition

Don’t ever accept - a proposition

The first one is fashioned - to give

And the last one is certain - to take

There is a probable - abstraction

That assumes you will not - live

Beyond a meditation’s wake

For all karma must - forsake

The need to act - to forgive

And remain pure – without intention.

A pebble drops upon the panacean - lake

           The waves are - transformative

                      Nevertheless, the waters remain an open solution

The beast devours for self-preservation

           The rabbit digs a hole for the same inclination; and the missive

                     Reads - that the synergy must exist for existence - to take

Survival has many owners; most have their reasons; these remain - opaque

           Problems are questions waiting to become - remissive

                     Silence is the only one that understands - the proposition

Death has a single name no matter the masses in the annihilation

           Prayers speak of a goodness despite the moral - permissive

                     The long rows of stones mark humanity’s final - break.

What is a Vase if Not an Empty

What is a Vase if Not an Empty

Sempiternity is the emptiness of the vase

With time being the vessel’s surface that contains the space.

Sentiment fills the structure with all senses of the heart

 And with glittery objects that make for splendid transient art.

Romantic matters and idealistic notions are set upon a grandiose base

Where the power of ephemerality stands while holding death’s face

And bitter tears, for the sentimental “I am” of Descartes,

Fall like fragile rose stems torn apart

And placed into the void that is the universal vase.

Where the inward is the relative outward & the outer is the macro inner space.

These empirical affectations become the ill fates of logic and its vessel’s chart.

And so, what is a vase - if not an empty of nothingness;

And if inverted, inside out, then a fill of everythingness?

Sutherland Springs

Sutherland Springs

Corinthians  5:14

For Christ’s love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion:

If One died for all, then all died.

A blessed Sunday morning in a Church of Worship

Meets a small community with a Texas-size heart.

Gathered around the ministry – for it is time for prayer.

Join hands and greet your neighbor in this fellowship.

The Lord’s blessings and love shall all share

In this, the House of God and Sutherland Springs.

Praise be to God and Peace on to you - Friend.

The noon hour comes, when we shall all break bread

And offer praise and gratitude for all we share.

Pray towards the heavens for all will come to an end

For there is a madman with eyes of evil out there;

As death’s hand touches them and then, the church bell rings.

Long days of grieving will follow, after the slayed have been counted.

There was a baby; and an elder; and many, many more

Who, on a warm autumn day, the brethren shared the call.

There was a shooter, with killing on his mind, to be accounted

And there, a good neighbor who came to save the church so no more would fall.

Now they must bury their loved ones - while Amazing Grace sings.

The Secret of Vanishing Points

A noose sways in the wind

Moving slightly one way

Then back the opposite -

Back and forth it moves

Intermittently between being

And not being -

As the moment decides

Whether letting go

Or holding on -

Is also the interval

That exists before

And after life -

Is the nostalgic past

Different from the pained

One?

How does history change -

Is it not always

the same event?

That is, except when memory

Paints it into a future frame

Where all the paths disappear

To an uncertain eternity

Once, one is no longer

Part of its reference –

Thus, a vanishing point

Leads the eye of the painter

And distorts the poet’s meaning.

 

A Rose by Another Name

A Rose by Another Name

She stepped cautiously down each broken stair

That once, she could fly up and past in leaps and bounds

With winged feet and red flowing hair a fire

Her veins flowed blue from a heart without a care.

These long years now have taken full fare

Upon those green eyes that glittered with light; now veiled rounds

Dulled by a labyrinth that says everything by revealing nothing,

Her sharp words, whispered in a graveled throat, smite

(the ruins of countless Camels and cheap whiskey shots)

“Am I not the shining star -you came to see on this moonless night;

Have you been here before - when I was a slightly better sight;

Do you not see that what you see in me - is your own fright?”

The Inn of the Rising Sun, with empty rooms, holds prisoner the Argonauts

That came to conquer their youth; they all checked out but could never leave.

Rose by another name danced her Mary Jane dreams

And sang all the songs of self when there was so much celebration

While whirling and traversing about in her sea colored boat

Twirling her dress of white silk and a multi-colored ramie coat

As she leaped out the window of her mind so to float

Falling from heaven’s grace down upon the streets of desperation

Where the Rose, by another name, cries out in blues of hesitation.

What Rhymes with Time

What Rhymes with Time

At the end, a fourth line reads: A Poet - Here lies.

In this place of death where the plots

Are laid out in grids and numbered by lots

Separating those souls of wealth with their majestic tombs

From the poor ones, whose only richness was life’s dire wounds.

And there too, resting in peace a wordsmith - forever buried by whys.

Walking along the outer and inner edges of quietness

One’s pace slows at each marker that reads that life

Was lived between begin and end; there was a son and a wife;

There was Confederate soldier killed in the Battle of Tupelo  

And, there was a woman who walked this earth 153 years ago;

Setting nearby, a baby born and died on the same day - in stillness.

The Junipers stand alone in twisted forms as if in mournful wailing

While the Sallows group together, down by the old pond, sadly weeping

Seemingly reaching down for the yellow evening primrose creeping

Along the water’s greenish surface where a knot of frogs hides

And then, a thought leads to a reason why one never chides

The dead nor wails at their passing due to life’s failing.

Instead wonder - What rhymes with time?

Then gather all the words very carefully;

Place them together impeccably.

Chose each line to build the account of one.

Form the stanza that will then stand - forever done

And that ends with: a poet lies here - with no more lines.

Indivisible

There is a light at the very edge

Where elapsing lines of impermanence

Weave in and then fall away like scorched lace

Always; always just within desperate grasp

But never; ever near enough to save us

Any more than a candle can redeem grace

Nor can a perfect prayer make the night

Indivisible from the visible and the invisible

Things that walk the paths of this tortured place

Testaments to the devils and the angels we avoid

To know; to dance with; to lie with; to die for

What we are and are not - are parts of the same face

What words can be said; written; spoken

What love can be given; taken; wasted

That will ever explain why we seek the empty space

The dark at the very edge

Where elapsing shades of permanence

Pour and fill the universe like an empty vase

Here Instead There

The bird flew there; she was here -

instead

The bird flew here; while she was there -

instead

And blue bird’s song did not sound -

dread

That she was there but could not be found -

fled

The bird was here and quiet now – how

sad

She was here too, lying upon the bough -

dead

Rejoice the bird lifted its wings and flew -

instead

She rested here and she there upon a flowered blue

bed.

The Vacant Occupy

The Vacant Occupy

There was never any design

That the line’s end be consigned

To a forgotten museum yard and ravaged.

The once bulwark engine’s roar savaged

To an endless silence from the days of yore

When the iron wheels and rails made for songs of lore

While handsome men and lovely ladies were preoccupied

By the sense of linear movement of the lives they occupied

Together with the hobos and economy class travelers

Off to another place - better suited for dreamers and revelers

And now, a stillness holds the vacant windows blank

Nevermore to engross starry eyes around the next bank

Or anticipate a panoramic scene - nor hold breath across the long iron bridge

That spanned time like a vanishing point moving towards a faraway ridge.   

Photo: BKKrysh