Tears trickle down her canyon cheeks from waning eyes;
Eyes knowing; yet, blind to why;
Wind fashioned eyes, brown as hair;
Grey'd by grief.
No solace found in well drawn salty brine,
For, Kate and endless sorrow are old friends.
Life's end dims her; the raging flees;
Oaks give up their leaves as golden harvest to dust,
A whirling dust, voiding dreams,
Careless thoughts; bartered woes.
Boughs burst resigned to mulch the earth.
The wind within her balks,
A pass, a dim defile blocked by truest fact;
Confusions lost in lonely stare;
No guardians by cloud-eyes
Where no one can see reason.
Now rain more brown than sod
Flows as last chord over sill
Seeking cascaded river's end,
A parting on the lifeless stones.
Oak sleeps now on sandy bed;
Dust has claimed one silken head.
Silent thunder claps its hand on knotty trunk
As Kate parts from her passing friend.
Romeo
Village scamp who roam's old Verona's hearth,
Filled with laugh and prankish spark,
Living life as lover's lark;
Dear youth, who never wished to fall
For quarrel's blight,
Sapling fair, who filtered Juliet's hair
And held the hilt of Mercutio's sword,
You were filled with balcony pride
And caused the crimson tide
To spill about your teens.
Sorrow was never yours to know,
For, in your dying breath release,
You meant to meet your love again
In youthful camps of green.
Now, from graves of martyr's pair
The sobs of Capulet and Montague rise,
For beneath their callous, jealous pain,
Fair youth by old age has been slain!
But, where ever there is youth's affection,
There be our Romeo's resurrection.
Brush Touches Vermilion
Brush touches vermilion
On silk stroked red distanced dawn,
On golden grain,
Grey wash backs ink capped peaks,
Quill rained greenery as water
Falls in skiff, there little men within
And gossamer sails as
Little specks before great towers kept
As if in violet well.
Oaks wind shimmer phantoms
Of a scholar's dream
Beneath ice willows.
Are all enshrined upon some Western Wall
As a sweet eye-seducing
Forgery of nature?
Song of the Right Whale
Why do you slay me,
Come tell me true?
What have I ever done to you?
If I've been heartless
Or if I've been crass
I'd see why you're craven upon your windlass.
Cutters and knivers
Leave scant few survivors
To cleave the blue waters in absolute free;
But, nervous, impatience
You kill'd my sweet daughter;
And, now with your knife you plunder my wife.
Remember the torment
When you were a caver
Sought by the long-tooth and burned by the snake.
Recall days of yonder
When you were the plunder
And many a harvest poured you in my lake.
Rush all my children,
The man shark's upon us;
He'll spear you and skin you and heaven knows what.
Do not ask questions,
For he'll reek a havoc
And dry you aboard the hull of his yacht.
So, please Mr. Costeau,
Spare me your wonder,
Your awe and your photos of my mating cries.
Just leave me to swim
In the realm of my maker.
Go and scrape chickens
Or something your size.
In My Heart there Lives a Dream
Here in my heart there lives a dream,
He, like the autumn wind
With auburn hair, hugs my soul
As he drifts by my fire lit.
And in my morning's, there he,
Like the summer's lilt,
Gives me rest from chaos
In our little house by the sea.
And the breakers come and wake
Me from my heart sigh;
And a tear wells as he,
Like the hope of Spring or
Winter's fading dream,
Is lost in the breaker's mist.
Measured People We
Measured people we
Already destined to the dunes
Measured on the tape
Before we breathe our first.
Given dates for dunes to take,
Upon our commenced sigh.
Born to die.
Barks upon life's open sea
Bearing each our destiny,
Same destiny.
Reaching foreign shores,
Known alone to Osiris,
Secret god, whose lips are pat
Serene in the mystery
Which winnows out our destiny.
Steal us at our slumber.
Shoot us at our run.
But whatever we be
Rejoice to free
The date of dune has tolled
Our destiny For measured people we.
Along the Wall
Along the Wall,
The wall of straight,
The wall of never ending length
We stand in steady motion
Never varied from the line,
Keeping silence vital
Doing work of twenty men,
Then, when the tasks are over,
Begin them once again.
But, when the change prevailing
Taps the portal's dawn;
We must prepare to solo
And give it all we can.
So, from the wall's recital
Listened to by throngs,
Whose critic's ears unerring
Shall pick apart each bone.
We must be frank and forceful
And shout our names in call,
So, we may be promoted
To yet another wall.
Before the Porta Regina
Before the Porta Regina, I stand and muse
And let my mind rove away
To the clay of my old birth
Distant in the silent Earth.
Here, at the Port'
I know full recourse,
The homesick soldier's feeble sway
Feelings found without a change
Since left behind in yesterday.
On these walls were Roman men,
Who, in their power peregrine,
Assailed the land, Cessalpine crossed,
And to the Danube at her crest,
Founded camps, most like my own,
In Franken Wood, called Ratisbon'.
And here they sat on walls of rock
Reading tarots, drinking froth
And pining for Antonius;
Seared for mater's gentle caress,
Calling Septimus boxing round,
Reading sire's sternly stamp,
Driving chariot's day, full play,
And mourning for dear Pertinax,
Whose footing lost him life and heart
From nimble trot on high rampart.
Old Athenians far from home,
Feeling Imperatorian force,
Cry at night for Cretan air
In metal-plated underwear!
And so, I stand before the Port'
And hear their silent tears,
For I still long for Antonius
All these wistful years.
Dora Clare
Morning by the window
Keeps it shine a-filterin'
Up the lattice garden
By my cellar door.
But, the old creation
Finds me still a lingerin'
By the metal trelace
In this Summer Song.
Gentle breezes kiss me
In my mourning carol;
But my morn is giving
To the merry mode.
Laughin' o'er the cabbage
Smellin' swell the hazel
By my helper's handle
In this Summer's song.
`Memberin' the loved ones
Keepin' them in vision
Goin' down the byways
And ladders of the soul.
I am just a-sittin'
Mournin' by my window
Callin' to ole Jacob
In his Autumn song.
Now, the whole plantation
Is in jubilation
For this granny's goin'
From the world e'er long.
While the snows were missin'
And the buds were crackin'
I sleep a-fore my window
Hearin' last Spring's song.
Come here Jake and Clara
Bring the baby to me
That I might remember
As I leave this world.
Nod I off to slumber
Smilin' like a catfish
Leavin' someone else here
To carry on my song.
One Divided into All
One divided into all!
Who are you?
What are you?
Cast into the cannon's shell
And splattered over many hearts
And kept in chamber's secret held
What are you?
Who are you?
Gentle fawns at pools of moon
Blowing cedar's berried vine,
Dolphin's fast in helion jump
You are motivate for all,
And yet, I know you not,
Sweet pump of care and careless.
But, as I move my hand above
The cedar tree in sweep of breeze
I know the fawn in forest deep
Sees the dolphin's swimming sweep
And knows you better than my eye,
Dear sweet unknown within the rye.
It Cannot Happen Again
It cannot happen again,
The pain of falling in love,
But I am swept by the moments,
As I stand on the road
Awaiting the minute when he comes,
And counting the cars for hours.
Remembering the pains of the past.
Set perimeters about my feelings, Because you know the routine,
You swoon, you're anxious for his step,
Your happy in his sight,
Then, when he goes, you long and pine,
Counting the minutes `til he calls,
But he never calls,
So, like a lovesick cow, you call -
On what pretense.
Make a pretense, find a reason - No! No!
Not again. I will not be hurt again.
Then, the counting stops,
The car is here,
And into the chamber I go
Cold and contained like an icy maiden,
Unable to speak,
Unable to find a pretense -
Only to be told, I am free -
I need no pretense here, or perimeter or parameter;
He tells me love is not measured,
Or contained by mankind's rules,
And I am my own torturer,
And three decades of deceit have ended
As I have fallen for my mirror image,
Who shows me how to pace these feelings,
Catalog them and recount them,
Enjoy them and review them.
And in an instant, I could shout to rooftops
My discovery.
Now I have a dream,
A new world outside the lonely counting of cars,
Of minutes and the like.
The only pretense needed is my feeling
And all else be damned to unnatural measures.
Winter Reigns
Winter's snows melt,
Pouring down the rim.
The birthings come,
Sweeping roots and cones.
They go!
They come and go,
Then, the magnet draws them up.
They go and come;
They bead in heavy brines
In salty tears of hope;
They flee the sacred realms of siloed dreams
And fall upon their grateful heir.
They come and go, but never stay
Or in the waves remain,
For soon, they're drawn to mountain top
Restored in winter's rain.
By the Quiet Door
Every now and then,
I like to sit alone
And seek the company of me alone-
And from its hook I'll take the phone
And hope no one shall me implore
As I set by the quiet door.
There I rest from me alone
As I alone know how to aid
The spirit of myself in heart
And also guess at my better part
In physical reaction -
Beautiful inaction
In hermitage retraction.
With this fine single aim at times
The arrow hits a rebus'd self.
And if I've stretched to make this rhyme
It's due to no one but myself
For while alone, my soul is raw -
And I create the quiet door.
Fecundis Eternis
Gentle hand that seeks
To smooth my shame, perch upon
My breast and caress
My rising sun-heart.
There sweet grace
Pours forth a vacuum cry, a wheeze
Releasing all lord's liquid dew
Coming and searching fragile
Bouquets in the mist reclined in hayloft.
O! Ecstasy of eternal bliss -
Surely there is no shame in this!
Remember on the seventh day
He rested.
Leviathans completely
Lift their tails to lacy moonlit shimmers
And exchange spout.
Big breasted, puffing, rufus pigeons
Impress their mates by tribal dancing.
Sea-lions zoo-bound even
Piece tradition, worry not for
Sunday School children's stare.
Remember the dim candle,
Beauty on the sultry May night
Aloft in some sacred moments.
Be it here or elsewhere, on the seventh day
He rested.
Toiling at sevens is my lord's liquid way.
Remember,
A wintry counterpaned night alone
Remembering those barned-seventh days -
With nothing but a hand to move the course along,
The sweet and frenetic mechanism of recall,
Like tortoises peering in and out of their sheathes,
Their beaks remembering where they have been
Arching in the sunlight,
Baked hard by the recall.
Remember the whales.
Batteries of overpaid scientists
Study whale-song
And it illudes, because they search
For Morse's code, instead of male to male,
Which might hold an intelligent clue.
No, these Sunday School scientists must find a restful,
Healthy seventh day for answers,
Maybe in some hayloft with each other,
Gently exploring the possibilities of tortoises
Loosed from their shells.
O! Ecstasy of eternal bliss,
Surely these is no shame in this.
Priestess
On the hill the poplars blow
Above the pristine lake they know
The tale beholding to the wind;
The tale untold to world of din.
They wave, these boughs, their leafy clothes
To show how broad their plumage grows
And yield in time to realm of breeze
Their verdant palm to nature's ease.
Beneath the hill lives old man Snow
Who sits all day beside the flow
And fishes out the flesh of men
Who pass him near his quiet den.
He calls us all to sit with him,
Beneath the shade of poplar limb
To loose the daily fray and flail;
To listen to the zephyr's tale.
The Sea
Carpet of gold touched by concoursed
Autumn hymn's across the vines -
endless,
Or seemingly so until it ends
At a wood's cleft or a lake's stave
The field of proto-brew shimmers before
The scythe shimmering in the low-sky
Sun's glint to shave the sea of its golden,
endless
Vines in long-grained bunches.
My bread, smooth white and unpacked,
Brown margined and one-bit
Lies still beside my morning cup,
A black lake rainbowed by cooling.
(Do I ever see Iowa when I eat my bread?)
Yet, toasted, a travelog is tasted
Gleaned from the deepest golden ocean
At ebb-tide when the scythe sings
Like whalers do when harpooning the mammoth
endless
Vines from betwixt the waves.
(Do I ever hear these
endless
Songs?)