February 2012



At the Rooftop with You
Reflections in the Summer Rain
Temples
Atacama in Mourning
Perhaps It's Time

a day to crawl into your pockets
Your Heart's Sweet Smile
Bookends
Moon Dreaming Thunder
Crossing Over

At the Rooftop with You

Cello played in the corner,
spirited then lulling,
like melodic snores of whales
lilting and lovely in the summer night,
but whales can’t sleep, can they?

The viola was the star.
She pulled slow tears from her strings,
from each candle in the room,
she ripped my heart
with Tiny Dancer.

Your eyes played it all
as we sipped each dark woody merlot,
a wrap around our moments,
just as the music wrapped this sky,
each star in its place, each molecule at riotous peace.

Reflections in the Summer Rain

As cold tears falling,
liquid crystal
hissing on the simmering streets,
and crackle-patched walks,
running over the creases
of my cynical eyes.

I watch in the doorway
as old dream trickles by,
reflection in a summer’s rain,
something precious
so foolishly left
to the whims of time and sky.

I see you in the sunlight
a dream made real,
a voice once heard
in my every mood and light.
a heart once alive
in the pulse of my morrow’s lost days.

Temples

I gently kiss you each night,
each temple to my whispering lips,
a ritual, my silent dreams for you.
I never know how they find you,
your days are your own.

Sometimes…
I imagine that you pause,
sense a heat fill your body,
and a gleam might dance in your eye.
I can see you in my mind as you softly smile.

That smile… a kiss for me.


Painting: Temple of Hope
by Wm. Andrew Turman © 2011

Atacama in Mourning

At the edge of these cobalt waters,
Full face to the crash and the spray.
Your heart behind me, it’s ghost-light,
A sallow dawn’s milk,
dripping shadow, callous quiet,
coating the silence in apathy,
in blue-black stone.

The warmth has fled,
the gentle colors of your heart
leeched, bled from the sandstone
and these red granite walls.
You have folded your easels.
Your paints have dried, lake bed cracked,
brushes left to molder, stiffen and shed.

Perhaps It's Time

When the darkness swirls
and the talons latch on,
seems it all was a folly,
a fools gold fantasy
worn away in the pule of a prairie wind.

When the sadness falls,
its malevolent salve obscuring the light,
faith burned away
like hot ash to paper,
moldering embers, flaring, consuming, then gone.

When the curtains fall
and the play has ended,
it's ever after lost, just a dull second act gleam,
perhaps it is time for my eyes should close,
time to walk away.

a day to crawl into your pockets

dawn crept to the sill of the sky,
a horizon corroding,
troubled cloud rusting to copper,
their gilt rimmed ribbons
glazed with a green patina.
the sun rose obscured,
occult tongues of fired bronze
spreading out around tarnished brass lips,
a searing grimace on this day's leaden face.
a day to crawl into your pockets.
a day for tattered dreams,
their remnants galvanized,
brushed to a dull dead gleam,
stippled with pewter and pitted chrome.

Image: Skyribbons © Jaso Hill

Your Heart's Sweet Smile

Came a trail I followed
a path with buttery greens spackled
with lemon mirrors in the trees
infinite flashes
like cameras at a gala.
all for the likes of wandering me.
The roots seemed to stretch
in the forest around me,
communing perhaps with the light.
My skin lit with their dances
my cheeks with soft whispers of April flame.

Came a trail I followed
a path with our promise
and the beauty of your heart’s sweet smile.