Muse Use
Did Jung refer to you
Anima
Flit and a wisp through
My chest
Stealing my breath?
Are not you the artist’s
Muse
Singing and dancing by
My passions
Making off with my propriety?
Did I say, Thank you?
It's cloudy. A breeze stirs the air. It's a lousy day for many things: sun bathing, boating, strolling along the shore. Yet, I find myself blissful.
The sea breathes salt and a heaviness that all but hugs you and then dares to dance into your lungs, pushing itself in, demanding you to breathe... deeper, expanding your chest and your mind. No limits. No casings. No hurry.
Inhale. Exhale. Taste. Feel.
When the frigid stare
Of Failure smirks at you
When the world has wandered off
And
The devastating silence
Roars around you
“You will not!”
When nothing but tatters and strewn plans remain
Well
What is there to do but
Build yourself a fire
From the rubble of
What you use to be
To warm you
And begin dreaming
Schemes for the ‘morrow?
Familiar
you
this creature with my face and eyes
small and fleet running rampant on my soul
what quest brings you here again
to chase and devour my joy
ever laughing as you go, flinging scorn and distain?
to me
troubler of spirits
rest here on my lap and tell me what fuels your frensy
how goes
your recent troubled flight?
weep with me as we wait together for the rain
for waters fall
might bring us sprites in drops of sweet dew.
let us tarry here
my familiar
Your beauty
Laid out before me
Orange hues wrapped in purple haze
This sky
Brushed upon a palette
By the descending of the sun
Layers
Broadcasting the coming night
Filled with hope and promise
Your beauty is laid out for me
A beauty that seeks me
Reaches out and touches my eyes
Causing them to scan for you
A beauty that grazes my thoughts
Hunting for understanding
Beyond knowing the work of light
Reflecting through prisms
And chemicals reacting in mist
Longing to be known
Your beauty
Laid out before me ready to be known
As in an embrace lovers know
The caress of wonder
Possibilities of tomorrow
In each gentle sigh
Each brazen kiss
Your beauty
Laid out before me stops
Longing is left alone
Desire
Calm and undisturbed
Even as your wonder
Strikes the lenses of my sight
Pounding
Nothing but a distant echo
Is heard
Tonight…
The drive that lasted for 4 hours and the wait that was longer
The deep, abandoned, rolling to tears laughter of children
The wraith like memories of ripping wrapping paper
The twinkling lights and flashing fancies from yuletide strands
The raising of the tree
The ritual prayer of our token cleric
The feast marked by odd dishes and common routines
The retelling of stories, forty days and forty nights worth of heritage
The settling into familiar seats and sighs
The late comers and early deportees
The insertion of Tab A into Slot B
The luxurious and the sorted
The games and the game with both having scores and winners
The holidays
I feel the poetry that is within
This
Moment of our
Entwining
The manner in which
We
Fold upon each other
Petals
Retreating into
Nightly
Comforts, securities held
As
Shields against the other
Side
While outside beasts and pacing
Devourers
Of words and dogma shout
Misguided
Voices that speak harshly
In
Proper punctuation and orderly belief
Transgressing
Breaking the stems of poppies
While posturing
Pompously
Crushing the delicacy of
Us
Thus releasing the cries
Of our beautiful
Poesy
(this piece was inspired by some raw poetry over at The Naked Light. Thank you Nevine!)
Green - stop
Red - go
We know that’s wrong
From learning
Thinking, believing
We have vast signs
Signals to stop us
To
Yield to others
Blinking permission
To
Move forward in our assigned time
And way
So
Why am I stuck
Frozen
Brakes locked
In trepidation
Of the moving forward of me?
If we can arrange the world’s traffic
Paths
Our road
Ways
So simply with blinking lights and orange
Barrels
Signaling our assigned courses
Why has no one provided
Neatly aligned cones
For knowing
The growing
Older, old,
The waning
Of
Me?
Hear it read - here:
.
Distract me
Please
Forgo the ego
Forbid self-consciousness
Do not ask me to be aware of
Myself or you or the meaning of our actions
Distract me
Let me be lost in the intensity
Of this moment
Fraught with games
Fierce technologies
Let me flounder in shallow
Humor
Crass comments
And crude divisions
Distract me
Please
Flaunt superficial contact
Fuel the facades
The projections of me
I want to be lost
For now
Adore
The me
I want you to see
yes
for the scars that remain after the battered soul heals
for the ongoing hemorrhage of injurious hope
for the fears arising from tortures too ghastly to be mentioned
for the pit of despair where rests stagnant laughter, mired in decay...
for these pieces of the poet's being... there must be poetry
for in the words of the verse, hammered out on life's iron keys
i often find relief and sometimes
in moments of purest grace
are discovered
wonderful questions.
(the poet knows this. true?)
We have
Essential
Moments of mandatory misery
Grasping, tugging emotions
Un-liked, ignored emoticons
The puffed-green faces of ourselves
Dot
The landscape and portraits of
Screens
Screaming at, about, into
The refined, together
Socially happy selves
That we would be, should be
If we abide broadcasted expectations
Joyful, complete, happy, helpful
Free…
We are not
Not always
These naught moments
Remind us
With beautiful
Misery
Hear it read here...
Pumpkins are orange
Always snarling
Ghosts wear striped sheets
Cut-out eyes, shuffling feet
Witches with green faces
Dotting our neighborhood places
Yard tombstones teeter
Launching creatures
Glow sticks and flashlights
Dance in the streets
Doorbells ringing
And parental ghouls singing
Trick or Treat!
(Note: In the first line, have we solved the eternal poetic question: what rhymes with orange?)
Red House Talking*
standing
heat scared twisted tin
metal remains of the shelter of generations
once marking the boundary between security, sky
and seasons' harsh torments of ice and wind
once shielding mother and child and keeping
home hearth’s warmth within
now
sentinel timbers stand charred
remnants of hard taught lessons
essential knowing of words and deed
those shadows of learning that walk with us stand undaunted
proclaiming our way through life's course
holding us to right of way
pane-less windows black and lost
tell of now absent eyes peering outward
watching for familiar faces and tracing memories
in winter’s vapor smudged glass and speaking again
of curtains drawn tightly muffling
the magic giggles of life long love and randy youth
now
the boundaries of roof and wall
yield openly, freeing lives long bound here
as prolific gaps grasp not even nature's transient breeze
but only to have it dance delightfully
through
resting on mind, heart and dream
then leave wafting on
free.
(written following a visit to Levering Orchard, Va.)