The Heart Races

June 9^th, 2011

The mouth talks

To the one who excites by word

By interest

By being, gravitation from bodies

Of great mass across short space

In planes of electricity from a background less passive

Than cosmic radiation sending us to each other.

Confidence exuding eyes

That send wavering wanting something more,

Steadfast and straight is the response to the heart

Of a hormone that keeps kicking days later leaving

Soaked shirts and wandering mind.

If the rush's vector is unpredictable

With speed increasing

Then the heart might find

The radiation too great to withstand,

Muscle fibers dying in their firm, false belief

By multiplying errancy,

Too great to out live.

The Greatest Way to Recover

Spring 2011

And in this life discover

Is to be yourself,

For your limits

We'll appreciate,

Though this may sound

Leaving you stunned

            standing

                        and led to rest

            Your feet

Must keep walking

For to be you must challenge

Yourself to overcome fear-

's native destructiveness

That blocks haute color

Of a life in deep longing

Where feet never languish

And hearts never break

Attacking only with love

And strength to meet its match

In equal strength to hold back,

Like a child sent to school too young,

Being both conscious and unaware

That your time never stops

Proceeding from space and matter

Means both are on your platter

To dine and deliver as you will

             Subject to evil found in legs

Grown tired and sick of twitching,

Fights to maintain

Divine origin

Along guarantees of Peace and

Balance to destroy selfishness,

Knowledge

And Control,

                                    All illusions to accomplishment

                                    Of a goal long desired,

                                    Ardently sought.

She Was the First

November 28, 2011

And if only the only.

In the shadow of several others, She waited. You displayed generosity in the form of your skillful beauty, any from which I could pick. It was on first sight I knew She was the only one I could take; the only one I wanted.

Above the fireplace She was hung. The splendor of many a house guest's loving compliment; the envy of a roommate's striving ability; the pride of a grandson's grandfather.

While relaxing on the couch, She blew dreams from her wispy skies of a future where I'd be a farmer. While studying, She lended motivation to agony's worth-while ends. While passing, She wrote inklings of what the land demands from us, and what it promises in return. Then in Her blades of maize, I saw the fields... they flowed.

Your phone call was received as a blessing. My response was to be a consolation. Your words were to be a nightmare.

One day a regular came, to take his pick of my grandfather's created beauties. On hearing of Her beauty, he asked for Her. My grandfather thought Her to be lost or destroyed, forgetting Her place with me, so he borne Her a sister.

On seeing Her face a year later, in my grandfather a fever grew. Weeks later he asked for Her to be gone by my mother's grasp on Her neck. Even though, months ago, I told him She was with me, he was ecstatic. Innocent though confused was the other's birth, why couldn't the situation be explained? That was too practical. I offered to trade Her for Her sister, so distantly She'd live on, but that was too unprofessional.

The dagger finally flew and splayed the heart when he said that that regular thought Her sister to be Her, and there to be no other. If white would be mother's bloody hands, then black he would find his soul. 

Scales shrunk and She came to see Her fields' end. Foregoing Her harvest She was raped, though gently, for it was the will of god that She leave Her earth. She was a painting in the way of Her artist's integrity. White did Her blood run. Silent She went, so for Her I screamed.

She was my muse. She was my him. By killing Her he had killed himself in me, and in Her white-washing nearly killed me too. Worth less than the customer's patronage, the importance of the grandson and that gift was sacrificed to hide the truth of his illegitimate daughter.

If it was a mistake

Then I'll start my tears.

If you lied to keep your hide

Then I'll offer you a cheer,

For when cowardice is the Lord's will,

Who are we to say no?

The dreams She awoke in me will hold me on toward a season of plenty. If you didn't see through the pigments on Her face to that land of promise, then how do you hope to live past the end?

And There Were Your Eyes

September 30, 2011

Staring

Waiting

Wanting

Asking

Pleading

Overflowing

Giving

Love of years,

And for years to come

Without condition or warrant

For a life down that expressway

Seen so often, so unoriginal,

Racing so fast that reasons were needed then lost

Rather than a walk under oaks

At a pace that yields

The love in my hand to yours, held.

Without wavering

Do your eyes remain, power

That keep mine in straight gaze. 

I Turned Aside

August 8, 2011

As it welcomed me in,

Its coves containing allure

Of place outside 

Of time,

Outside itself.

I started slow

Low

And found myself faster.

The farther and farther I went in

The more it opened up.

Where at its mouth the stream sat dry

It now ran wet,

Growing fuller the higher I climbed.

I drank and was filled,

I stepped and was carried on,

The heat of the day cooled

By springs and shading trees

Sending life and wisdom to any


Who would brave that long journey up.

Briars without number came to block the way

Through which I tore and slashed

Losing perfect skin to bloody paths of pain

From thorns dug in deep

Spurring my stride 

To march swifter.

The longer I journeyed the harder muscles pushed

And sweat drowned the eyes to near blindness.

Even if clothes be stripped

And flesh be ripped

Until, freed, my soul would soar, 

I couldn’t think of turning around;

Nor wanted to.

I had to see more

Be more

Feel more

Know.

But gradually light lessened.

My feet slipped in my fever—

Then above the green canopy I saw

A sea of gold. 

I made hinderances hide as

Poles dug in deep to thrust

Upward, to keep from the dark.

Too late to turn around, I went up.

But switchbacks came.

Would their distance away

Play more than the vertical feet gained?

As sinews faltered rounding a corner, 

Time almost gone, I was

Touched by a ray. My lungs

Opened and feet left the ground;

The wind defined my hastened legs

And wrote the words from my ears.

Purest energy did I receive that I felt

No other thing.

Walls and concaves became

Lines and points and so

I saw my end drawn.

On reaching the saddle among summits I sat.

Taking in the views of last sights

I raised my hand and caught that last bit of honey,

Warmth everlasting and true

And at last I knew.

As the sun gave diffuse grace

For late souls to get home

My feet dropped and shoulders let go

—It was dark.

Such was my day.

Cats Roll Around In the Pollen

April 6^th, 2011

Covered decking, taking in the breeze,

Looking up to me every so often to make sure.

After having sat for quite a while, all of a sudden,

On looking out there you are,

Sitting on a low branch of the maple,

Looking around,

Looking at me,

Silent,

Then away.

On looking up again, you catch my eye from the corner,

Deep in the limbs of a cedar, your red cloak giving you away,

You spy all the more. Even later you appear again

To visit a Robin that just flew in.

All this time you listen.

Now on a branch over head you let out

A single chirp. Is it time?

Up to the next branch you send a fuller chorus.

Up and Up,

Out and out,

Song to song you sing

Until at the top you stay stalwart.

You turn away from me to face the wind just come again,

With the quick glance away I find you’ve gone.

Did you see what you were looking for?

Did your message get across?

A flint—return, then wings,

Gracing me with the sight of your flight

The quiet song of your body:

Northern cardinal.

When the Defibrillators Are Raised

April 11^th, 2011

From a chest finding its rhythm

Eyes rip at the face for sight

A breath comes as a grasp

Desperate to leap from the void

Of fleeted life and take hold

Of forms

And sounds

And feeling.

Feet to the floor

Hands to the chest

Never had disbelief and joy been such bedmates,

Souls joined in the rekindling.

Fingers move by fires

In stripping medical manacles

Legs sending one outdoors

To run and leap in the parking lot

On concrete no tougher than

Reclaiming a life that was lost.

The scars on the chest

Can't hold back lungs that fill

With a will unto its self

And a contentedness found in the ability to smile

Even if only once more.

I’m Looking For You

May 5^th, 2011

I’m following the trail.

I know you’ve been here.

From the print in the dirt

To the bench just warmed.

I smell the trail mix you just ate.

Across the lake I heard you laugh.

I’m close.

Don’t stop in your hike.

I’ll catch up.

I’ll find you.

And when we’re together we can

Turn onto that trail we’ve been dying to see

For so long. I’ll hold your hand

If you sing through the trees.

We will see blooming rhododendron,

The flight of butterflies in the Spring,

Pick wild blueberries

And climb up among the laurel

Where I’ll kiss you on the check

And you’ll lend me your lips.

Whenever we get tired we can go

Down near the river and lay among the ferns.

Then when the day is almost over

We can sit on the bank and watch the river reflect,

Until like a petal that touches the water,

Ripples,

You’ve gone in to swim.

I’m not letting go, but you’re gone.

The river is still sending

Ripples until the moment I go in,

After you I swim.

I’m looking for you.

I’m following the trail.

The river regains its reflection.

Honesty Abated

April 25^th, 2011

By the back that turns

Once solid as granite

Weathered kaolinite it yearns

For life on the river

To set no foot again

On that shore of exception

And certainty yielding,

The mouth wide open

The heart pumping words

That will never hold so firmly

Or lead, as a trail, so clearly

As the moment I told you.

Blazes hidden in branches

Or by lightning erased

With the char of our deck time

Made morning oatmeal,

Every day, to subsist

For the bird that would fly

And land on the sail

A signal for shore

To approach and unhand

The knots on the rigs

That keep to the course,

Dump bilge, drop the sails,

To land we embark.

Running the eyes

The feet sight on land

To the fields, food to make

Do our stomachs demand.

And after we've eaten,

Tongues sated, salt licked

To the forests, to the trees

To the trails, the wind commands.

Traversed under shoe,

Weighted, kicked down,

The rocks cry out truth

And there we are found.

But as pressures release

And prints do progress

The canopy of life

Turns to cotton and wood--

On the water we are now,

To your posts, reassume.

New storms are coming,

The sails need the mend,

On our course we are sailing

For the winds do we bend.

To have followed the blazes

And been given their word

We have only a memory

Of the flight of that bird,

And the deep sigh and distant glance that it gives.

I Was Going to Call

April, 10^th, 2011

With thoughts of contrition

When a brush of the neck

Revealed a stowaway

From the bike ride home.

An inchworm whom I nearly smooched

Had been clinging to my skin.

When prodded with finger

She froze, still as a stick, bright green

Standing erect in the strength of her stance.

I left my desk

Putting down the phone

Remorse to the pocket

Walked downstairs

Opened the door

Stepped over the cat

To place you on a shrub

Next to the porch.

After a breath you continued climbing,

Searching out the highest point,

Feeling each step out, carefully,

Only to dive again into the sky?

Is that really your life’s work

To jump until you can jump no more

Or ‘til wings sprout

Just before the landing

From persevering insanity?

The next time I plan to make a call

That would dig me deeper,

I will try to climb like you,

Long and harrowing be the journey,

Until at the pinnacle

I cast off all fear

And experience

The rapture of letting go.

The Fields They Flow

March 31^st, 2011

Beyond angles in the eye,

Yonder upon yonder

Past town after dead town

Sprawling city to empty industry

From arctic to tropic

The fields flow so far,

Searching every corner

Every mountain

Every clime to find

The one who would pine

For their endlessness

Of numerous crops

Varieties both common and unique.

More often than not the fields’

Endlessness has matched the search

For its caretaker.

Is the tillage too intense?

Densities too high?

Microbes lacking diversity?

Ubiquitous is their denial,

Yield decreasing after each

Comes, stays, goes.

Extents shrink to scales,

Desiring more and more

The hoe of one concerned

Or the scythe of one interested.

If there be no direction from one who can see

The fields for their unending

Work and promise

Then for a worker for whom to yield

And benefit, a companion unafraid to lay hands

Upon the earth and take what it gives

With all its structure and fertility and stalk

Year after year,

Only needing gentle tending—a harvest,

Desiring a season of bounty.