Out of the smoke that billowed out of the flattened building,
horror was everywhere. Grief stricken, our teacher ordered the few survivors to the prayer building,
but I chose to run away, to my home only a few blocks away,
too shocked to cry, in complete disbelief, lost for a word, when my mother rushed outside and held me tight in her arms, visibly shaken. She took me inside and splashed water on my face, as if to make sure i was not a living dead, then she told me to rest and stay indoor with all the commotion outside, then ran back to school to help, was hit by the second bomb and never came back.
Easy to get lifted up
billowed out on the wonder
of it all,
the manifest beauty, the panorama
of nature’s splendor.
Easy also to ignore
a single termite’s latent ability
to consume mighty mansions,
or the flood and glut of plenty
to strip away the flourishing
along with the withered.
See that little infant
toddling barefoot through sweet grass,
plump little feet
moving to their own crazy rhythms,
how like playful Shiva’s dance it seems
as He crushes meadow buttercups
to ignite cosmic suns!
See that tiger glowing bright
in the blind fathoms of a starless night?
That is your own hungry heart
knowing
that you alone
are your own chosen
prey.
When the Earth burns too bright
it is the fire in your blood,
that see’s beyond right or wrong,
destruction and creation.
Such visioning
is far beyond rapture.
Lace lined drapes
Sway and dance
Billowed curtains
Dark romance
A late fall chill
Rattles bones
The windowsill
Creaks and groans
Ferrel wolves
Serenade the moon
Harmonized howls
An eerie tune
Tall pine trees sway
In whistling wind
Burnt autumn leaves
Die and descend
Screeching doors
Croak and whine
And ghoulish chills
Attack your spine
Shadowed figures
Lurk about
It’s Hallow’s eve
Without a Doubt
Dressed in all black he hid in the corner
his teeth covered in a yellowish stain
no hair on his head
as he rubbed it slowly
The sun cast his shadow
and the smoke billowed to the sky
He was ashamed of his habit
He was ashamed of his sin
"Practice what you preach"
is what was repeated within
Over the years his shoulders began to slump
perhaps from too much praying and kneeling
He's spending most of his life
focused on healing
Nick was a man like any other
except he decided to take this journey
without a lover.
nimbus billowed
the sky roared
bolts flashed
a deluge fell
a thirst quenched
nature prevailed
Clouds of smoke billowed over ruined buildings
That once were homes safe and welcoming.
Schools where children were learning,
Hidden now from view by dust clouds billowing.
Out of the dust men came with guns began to fire,
Indiscriminate in who they killed mothers, fathers.
Such a wailing of grief rose to the sky above,
Whence no one cared or heard no love.
Who has the right to murder the seed of a nation,
And showing no conscience or even a tear,
Spreading death and abject fear,
There are no messiahs riding to rescue,
Andrew .p. mcintyre.
Easy to get lifted up
billowed out on the wonder and awe,
yet who called the mountains, giants,
the forest bearing seed, small?
The rapture
of not seeing the white horses,
those waterfalls of white horses,
yet knowing that they are there
behind the giants and the seeds
all bursting out from nothing
back into nothing,
that kind of rapture
is very much more than
enough.
I like the wind
when it flutters
and flaps bed sheets
hung out on a line -
I like how it sweeps
patterns across fields
of tall grass and sends
whispers through
the trees.
I like to see
its breath billowed
in coloured sails
blown across the bay,
and how, in might,
it hurls clouds
of seaspray
high into the air.
But most of all
I like the wind
when it is all done
and curls up
into a drowsy calm
and falls asleep
under a warm
afternoon sun.
I drove over the grass in their front yard.
Probably didn’t do that on purpose.
But when you’re about to be towed.
You run.
You leave evidence.
You can’t control it.
As long as you avoid the collision universe.
You can still keep your ten year old car.
I could probably go back to my uncle’s house.
He has a room.
He told me to put my luggage in the corner.
With spider webs in that old cabin.
So run.
From the bee that is chasing me.
I like the taste of honey.
Sit in my car and eat a honey stick.
There are memories.
Even in the lake.
So that the whole lake is like a pill.
Which I can take anytime.
I probably didn’t do that on purpose.
Drive.
Into the collision universe.
The evidence left behind me.
Points to someone walking up the hill for help.
I have a ten year old car.
And drove it very far.
I fought at my old friend’s place.
Left a dead patch of grass that can’t be erased.
My uncle died two years ago.
I saw him somehow as the wind billowed.
In the collision universe.
Some cars are fixed.
And then there’s me.
When night has come like a thief in the night
blowing winds of fierce by a blinding light
When the moon's nightdress is a billowed glance
in the same dark sky where the stars have danced
When your broken sleep is far too steep
and your much too tired for arms to keep
When the only glow flows through a lamp
and your sheets are damp as a soggy stamp,
It is time to raise your eyes and pray
and hope He meets you, in mid-way !
I come here often, stop,
and from the river bank, watch
the ribs of an old wreck break through
the surface on an ebbing tide.
After all this time it still seems
to crave for breath, to air
its last remains.
Whatever past it has
no longer resides in living memory
but in a paragraph inked
in a shipping registry sunk
deep in the basement
of the Maritime Museum,
or is somewhere forever becalmed
in a photograph,
time frozen on a sepia sea.
But this morning I took it in,
gave my mind
to its hollowed out hull
and let imagination
lift it from the mud and make
it whole. I sailed it
out of the suck of time
and set it upon an open sea
and as its sails billowed
across my mind, I got the sense
that throughout all the wear
of passing time,
it had been waiting for me.
"Conversation with the wind, theme #5."
Wind, will you whisper softly
murmuring low as you blow
lifting the birdies on your currents
swaying the wildflowers in the meadow
very soon, my darling girl
Wind, oh why are you angry
blowing my long curls here and there
whistling down the lane
bringing with you rain
it is spring, my darling girl
Wind, can I soothe you today
I want to plant my hanging baskets
and you are twirling and whirling them
I think you are playing a game
will settle down, my darling girl
Wind, today I went sailing
and you filled my sails with love
they billowed and cracked joyfully
as I drifted on the aqua sea
happy to help, my darling girl
Naught but a billowed vagabond
A breeze longing to shriek
Soar on an eagle’s up draft
Plunge, predator-like, to earth
Riffle the grasses as I pursue
The limitations of my fate
DISTURBING
Last night at the witching hour,
I was woken from a dream
By the sound of ghostly howling
And a shrill primaeval scream.
I opened one eye cautiously
And there above my bed,
A saw an apparition
That filled me full of dread.
It hovered for a moment,
Then flew around the room,
Muttering incantations,
A harbinger of gloom.
The wardrobe door was slamming,
The light flashed off and on.
The curtains billowed in the wind.
I cried out, “Please be gone.
“Oh, all right,” said the spectre,
With a disappointed sigh.
Then it flew out of the window
And up into the sky.
I nearly used an expletive,
But I never use that word.
So I used initials only
To query what had occurred
White sheets rattle in surging winds billowed free
I fly suspended dangling from stars dancing
Moon cajoles like my father laughing at me
Butterflies land in swarms gathering goodness
Pouring syrup on waffles honeyed sweetness
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