Screen Time Flickers #Poetry

Screen Time Flickers

There is contemplation to be done
That will be left undone, again
Screens scream for my adoration
Demanding pixel friends await my liking
And a cute cat video and a political meme
Mimic my ideas into me
Providing for me
My thoughts and views
In screen time
And time again
Lapses through box and frame
Search to query
Filling the blanks of inquiry
Finding me glancing between profiles and bios
Building walls of windows
Leaving no space
For me to wander quietly
Among my heart…beat
And breath…taken

A Revealing Tear #Poem

Before she quickly brushed it aside
her single tear drop traced a line- 
like a silver scalpel slicing so quickly 
through flesh 
that bright bone is revealed before blood appears
 - such was this tear
a momentary revealing that she cared too much
that her need was too great
that her hope for recognition, salvation actually, would not come
Not tonight
She had said no…

Pacing the Cage

This one isn't mine. It's powerful and worth sharing. It speaks to those wonderful moments in our living when our passion, our creative muse demands more from us than routine, discipline and status-quo will provide us...

Pacing the Cage

Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it's pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long 
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage

I've proven who I am so many times
The magnetic strip's worn thin
And each time I was someone else
And everyone was taken in
Powers chatter in high places
Stir up eddies in the dust of rage
Set me to pacing the cage

I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It's as if the thing were written 
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you'll wind up
Pacing the cage

Sometimes the best map will not guide you 
You can't see what's round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places 
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land 
For the coming of the outbound stage
Pacing the cage 
Pacing the cage

-Bruce Cockburn

Claudia's Gift

Claudia’s Gift

Gilded statutes point the way with their gaze
Through Spanish moss arbors
Draped on ancient oaks
Who always listen and keep in their boughs memories
Of
Fried chicken picnics and tossing legs bones to alligators for fun
And excitement
The sound of the Super 8 tick, tick, tick
Reeling black and white recollections 
Prancing bee hive red heads and Christmas present
Antics unwrapped
Flickering
Of the great family explosion
Death
Marked by tombs stones one, two, three
Then and now
Yet these hollowed bridleways sustained you
Then
Strolls on a summer day beneath gargantuan granite gods
And musing fountains 
Telling tales of larger worlds and beliefs
To shield you
Gardens of stone poetry
Meeting you with promises
Of beautiful roses and tender assurances
Pledges of gods and God’s
Brush as real then as the careful breezes 
And terrible tears 
Diminishing into the sand under
Tough, unyielding Bermuda grass
Growing then
And now
You remain kept
In the reminiscences of that place, that restful, private sanctuary
Even the faintest music of spilling fountains
And fading etchings
And half remembered rhymes
Uphold you now
And me
For these are your favors 
The fuel of muse and wonder
Poets and painters
Nurses and writers
Programmers and preachers
To cast their lot
In the brook green stream

The Voice of The Irises, #Mondayblogs #poetry

The Voice of The Irises

This morning
Damp with it all
The purple tongues
Of the Irises
Threaten to speak of painful memories

She always loved the spring
That the Irises announced 
Arriving on palates 
Of green and violet
Promises of tender possibilities

But, the spring never really changed
Anything of substance and
Colors run in summer rains
Pooling into charcoal swirls

And the Irises died
With a vain promise
Whispered into tomorrow’s
Memories

An Idol Life #Poety #MondayBlogs

Idol Life

When you've read the holy scriptures of countless wise fanatics
When you've pondered the tallied tales of positive thinkers
When you've sailed the seas of helpful suggestions and poignant promises
When you've chosen choices cast in caring coy iterations
When you've jumped up and down embracing the enthusiasm of enthusiasts
When you've done years upon years of carefully crafted…eating…praying...loving
When you've walked down endless miles of isles to alluring altars
When you've run, climbed and stood in search of joy
And
When you have nothing more to show for it than a collection of geometric idols and savvy souvenirs 
Cast in cried out salt and stripped marrow…
Are you done?

From Dawn to Dusk, A #Poem

From Dawn to Dusk

Before dawn

The moon looms

Bright, bold

Shining through the film

Of clouds and blinds

Gliding across her

Like lace sliding off her

Shoulder

Once, long ago…

On Writing #Poetry

Writing Poetry

Sometimes, I have an idea
A particular phrase that gets my gut 
Or 
A bothersome feeling that just won't be captured in prose
Then I write it down in short
               Broken lines    and
      Phrases and 
See what comes out.
Then it stares back at me
Talks to me
Calls my name or yours
As I look at its particular shape
Hear its weedy voice
I might tweak a word or two to get it to look
Or feel or sound a bit better
As it speaks about you or me
Our living, believing, breathing, selves
I name it Poem
                – Because I have to --
Then I hit post and hope it has value to someone else.

(Because of a conversation between poets. Thank you. You know who you are.)

Muse Use #Poem

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?

Spring Break for #MondayBlogs

You know those days
When winter is giving way to spring

When the day begins on crisp promises
Finding us
In layers of comfortable clothes
And gentle expectations

When both must to be stripped off
Cast aside along the path
To a beautiful day?

Today is that day...

Too Full of You #MondayBlogs

Too Full

The quill hovers gorged
Dripping onyx truths
Upon pristine parchment
Unable to spill
Small enough droplets
To inscribe
The delicacy of
You

The #Poet's Familiar Muse - #MondayBlogs

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

While Reading #Poetry on a Rainy Sunday - #MondayBlogs

Words dance and weave
Emotions
Into singular assaults 
Passions 
With a clash of images 
And colorful sensations
Each 
Kindly interrupted by its 
Crisscrossing cousin 
Uninvited visits
Roughly terminated 
Twisting
All to be known faintly
In murky melancholy 
And egregious imagining

Your Beauty #Poem

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…

A.M. Shining #Poetry #MondayBlogs

A.M.

Morning's sun lifts its sphere
Casting tendrils 
Radiate into the a new day
Frozen time, that eternity of a moment
When they reach us
Offering a solitary caress

Winter Frosting

The memories of us
Like layers of snow on lamp posts
Chill the tomorrows
With feather-light
Burdens and glittering 
Prisms to blind this weary traveler
Passing by

Goodbye

Oh Senility Me #MondayBlogs #Poetry

Gnarled fingers hold
Gently
The dog-eared photos of youth
Shingled eyes search repeatedly
Among shades of white and ash
Wavering hope yields
Regret for memories lost, trampled
Underneath
Rote recollections
Snapped
This snap shot is…this…me?

Our Holidays #Family

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

The #Poetry in Us

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!)

The Waning of Me #Aging #Poetry

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: