April 2013


Vessels for this Moment
An Earthsinger's Lips
Digby and Sian
Muzzled
And then the Fireflies Danced

Indus-tree
Always your Skin
75 Degrees N
70% Cacoa in a Thursday Night
Cave of Hollow Nights

Vessels for this Moment

Lay your blanket at my feet.
Its protective cliches, its maxims,
Its fears… left to scurry
for weaker shoulders to burden.

Face me raw, no dogma nor doctrine
dragging the hope from this moment.
Lift the veil of crutches, unwrap the gauze,
walk naked, stripped of the rules.

Take my hand, no right or wrong
no He woulds, no scripture says.
Let me hold you, quiet and true
as vessels for this moment, virgin and new.

 

An Earthsinger’s Lips

just past the gloaming,
as sky walls crept violet,
a muffling blanket
to sun-bloody tears.

I am dusty, desert hot,
my mind’s eye imprinted
with paprika and sulfur
with their cliffs and canyons of dark wine dream.

freckles winking
silvered blue in blackberry jam
trillions of light years of white
barely a gleam in our eyes.

we are imprisoned in this moment,
the majesty of this place,
a splendor spilt,
as the whisper from an Earthsinger’s lips.

Digby and Sian

Digby was 68 if a day
a sprite eyed lad
in a heap of rumpled clothing,
barely a genuine smile.

It lay wrinkled most days,
stiff with the starch
he had sprayed on all those hopeful collars,
those cuffs so smooth,
dutiful and service-crisp.

Sian grinned at this dawn
her apple cheeks glossy
tight as a burnished roast from the oven,
her chestnut eyes
gleaming with mischief and glee.

Her Digby was coming his note had said today.
she’d be damned if that shirt stayed crisp.
the hope in those collars might blush
his rumples as tight as her cheeks.

Muzzled

Who stopped you…

cold in your tracks,
dazed,
smacked upside the head
spinning in turmoil
gasping in a panic attack
walking on clouds for weeks?

Who stopped you…

from a path of nose to the stone,
re-started your heart,
blew the breath from your stomach
with shards of disbelief?
who altered your world
with a look,
a phrase,
a breathless kiss?

Who stopped you…

from living out loud
from savoring your life?

What limits your voice
your rage
what muzzles your light each day?

And then the Fireflies Danced

Dusk fell like a velvet hammer,
a lilac surprise on wonderful days,
a spreading quilt of quiet
suspending our joy, pulling
our thoughts into the ‘morrow.

And then the fireflies danced from the lawns,
lifting off the hydrangea,
lifting off with our dreams.
Alighting, swooping…
Tinkerbells of our night,
luminescent ideas just out of our grasp.

Summer was connecting the dots…
no deadlines, few plans beyond the now.
the sun was hot, the milk was cold,
you heard the ka-Zzing of the kickball and you ran,
you heard the slap of a Rawlings mitt
and you danced in your shoes.

And then the fireflies danced from the lawns,
and the day was lost,
the fights forgotten, the reasons fading
their storms lifting off of your mind,
alighting, swooping…
luminescent stars,
memories sipping on the lilac sky.

Indus-tree

Stepping
like a thoroughbred stallion in a marshmallow field,
as a dog duck-stepping
in laced vinyl boots.

I walk your mind,
your stories
as a kindred of heart,
yet a stranger it seems
to the eyes that lie
on the lens of your inner tongue.

I taste your mind
ski its moguls
landing in the ochre
dust of its sullied fears.
they speak of the hunger
in hot simple tears
that fall from the Indus eye.