Category: Uncategorized

Love’s Last Pyre

And in the ever-growing distance,

the last husk of love lays

beneath

a glaze of frost.

The fire burned long, but slow.

In time, it smoldered, with ribbons of fire

still lacing the entrails,

still bright against the night sky.

The fragrance turned to stench,

but the winds of autumn cleared the air.

In time, I stopped turning back to look.

In time, I stopped searching.

In time, I became the husk,

dried, imperfect, indifferent to

the pending blade of harvest.

But it’s quiet here, and sometimes

loneliness sits next to me,

and sings her little songs of

how nice it could be.

But I’m tired now, and

the sound of another voice

in my space would prove

too intrusive, too expectant,

and redistribute long set boundaries,

or rebuild long standing walls.

I’ll let the silence reign, and the

solitude ring.

And other times, I wonder

if there are any more

embers

left beneath the pyre,

protected

from the

frost.

is any ember left in the pyre,

protected

from the

frost.

A Symphony of Stars

A Symphony of Stars

They say space has no sound.

How arrogant, since space is closed to us,

and there are ranges of hearing.

Space makes its own music,

and perhaps if we could hear and analyze it,

we would find a way to weaponize that too, as

it was back in the days we loved to destroy our lands

and each other for the brief, wanton joy that seizing coveted things

gives our feeble souls.

No.

It’s best we contain it within our hearing, and

play the music of the heart instead.

The spheres will write their harmonies,

and the cosmos their rhapsodies swelling with

the divine grandeur of all the gods that ever occupied the heavens.

And let the stars reflect on the ebon wood of the grand piano,

and twinkle as we play their lullaby for

the very first time.

Roses of Wisdom and Regret

And at the end,

and in his solitude,

he held the last one in

gnarled old hands.

His dues long paid,

his sadness long lived.

One rose,

red as blood,

bright as anger.

The others

by his side?

Useless, pointless,

unshared wisdom,

not even given the option

to go unheeded.

The clouds gathered overhead,

and within his mind,

and shrouded his heart.

He waited for the falling rain,

accepting his fate.

He waited for the falling rain

to drown the roses,

dissolve the regret,

and forever

seal the silent scream of wisdom

inside.

Bare Shelter

Alone

on the platform

she stood.

No luggage

No baggage

Nobody

running to someplace.

The wind found her, and passed her by.

The rain, so close,

like tears and dear departed,

never touched her.

The shelter was bare,

and no light would soon come,

but on that lonely night

her heart

so full, so restless, so free

would not let her stay.

The Ashes of Spring

The decades pass,

the seasons change.

I pass beneath the trees,

stripped bare at the moment,

the bark and branches at final shade

of a deathly brown,

with whatever creatures burrow inside.

It’s of a piece,

and I’m at peace, despite the wars I fought.

I did my part, carried my weight, rallied my

spiritual troops

in the cold and dark, getting up to

push back against setback.

But the ashes of spring have blown away

on the breezes, the blizzards, the rainstorms.

They’ve dissolved and run into the soil from

dew, and mist, and fog.

And every now and then,

my blood.

I’m tired now.

But there’s no one else here,

and no one is coming

even to say hello, much less rescue me.

The ashes of spring make no sound

beneath my feet, and

brown, bare branches have no nascent

scent of new spring blooms.

There’s only the tail end of winter now,

hanging on with claws just inside the door.

I have no choice but to be patient.

I have no choice but to go on.

The Skipped Line

Have you ever wondered if the skipped lines in your notebooks were angry or sad that they weren’t used? This is what happens when you overthink….

They remain the same when the coffee’s cold, or when the

dawn bleeds color on the black night vigils of our studies, plans,

dreams, and goals.

If we could but sort through the

mounds and mountains of we’ve made of them,

man’s fathomable mind would know to explore them

and why they make us who we are, and how we think.

The unused line is passed over, left blank and wanting.

We see nothing, and nothing seems to change.

The line has nothing to show for its existence,

or so it believes.

Does it despair, perhaps ignoring a truer, higher purpose?

What it does not know is that it provides

a delineation and organization

of thought.

It is, in and of itself, a break in the narrative.

It whispers to the brain to retain all the information gathered,

then build on it, or depart from it to explore

a new realm of information, imagination,

the character of your story’s character.

If only we could tell the unused line

it isn’t empty at all.

What Do I Call This Space?

What do I call

this space

where you once stood?

How do I tell

the silence

to be still?

When dinner is ready,

there is no shadow

to dine with me.

In the places we haunted,

there are no echoes or whispers

of your voice.

No trace of your perfume.

No watching the candles

glow, caressing your

bronze skinned richness

alongside my fingers.

Where we lived,

no sighs of love

disrupting the quiet night.

What do I call this space?

‘Loneliness’ is too sad a name.

‘Alone’ is too cynical and stark.

‘Freedom’ is a lie.

What do I call this space?

Come back and tell me.

The Bells of Spring

Ah! The spring bells ring below.

The waters run to flood.

And too soon sail invaders

wanting plunder, flesh, and blood.

They ring the spring bells in the vale.

It is a happy sign,

between the zephyr and the gale

to make the summer wine.

And hard at work the bardic guilds

will seek to make their coin

at night in all the taverns when

the men and women join.

The bells of spring don’t just ring here,

but all throughout the land.

The frozen winter’s over.

Child at breast, and sword in hand.

Sometimes they’ll ring out happiness,

and other times, alarm.

Their song unites the people,

hand in hand, or arm in arm.

We pray always the bells of spring,

will now and ever always ring.

How Do I Read These Headlines?

How do I read these headlines

in my skin,

and stay ‘neutral’?

How, and still deny? How, and still absolve?

How do I view the photos of all these

grim atrocities done to black bodies

posted by the demons who did them,

and say “It has no part in me?”

How do I stand for an anthem that

proudly hails

killing my ancestors?

How can I ignore

the flag of a heritage of hate?

Avert your eyes, if it pleases,

and veil yourselves behind the

tresses of your hair,

put the lie in your lungs and give it breath,

and point your fingers at me,

who did nothing at all,

if it comforts you.

But the blood cries out from the soil,

and the photos so freely, bravely displayed

(and sold as postcards) have not faded.

The blackface figurines and sack dolls

still abide in the curiosity and antique shops,

and the mass, unmarked graves

are not unseen.

Nor are the ones who put the

black bodies in there.

I read these headlines,

but I’ve seen them play out too,

and the play doesn’t seem to end.

So friend, if that is what you (say you) truly are to me,

don’t ask me to separate myself, and deny, and say

I’m not at risk.

At any given moment,

on any given day,

someone can lash out

at me because of my color, and

tomorrow could very well be

my last day in this world.

But keep your eyes averted,

and yell louder,

peeking through your fingers as

I turn into a headline.

Embracing You

Embracing you,

much like a drop of dew

’round a seedling.

Cradled in dark innocence,

we wait

together

for the heat of ourselves

to become

the light of the world.