I love you…
not in the noise of blossoms
screaming their radiance into spring
but in the way roots strip themselves into
world's silence, quiet, hidden
yet steadfast in every tempest
I love you…
in the silence that follows laughter
when memory brushes gentle against my chest
and I know that even years cannot erase
the warmth sent in your name.
I love you…
like the coastline greets the tide
forever restoring
even when the waters are hauled away
by the pull of far-off moons.
I love you…
not because love is endless,
but because even in endings
you are the place
I begin.
A Mystery of Love
Who can understand. Why would a person
sacrifice himself in such a way. Spat on,
slapped, falsely accused, deprived of sleep,
given no food, unquenched thirst. Hauled
before Pilate the Roman governor. No guilt found
but crowd cried for Barabbas, a murderer and rebel, to
be freed. No guilt could Pilate find, but the throng
called for His crucifixion. Scourged by Roman whips,
hunks of flesh torn and blood flowing in rivulets.
Crown of thorn smashed down on His head, blood
streaming into His eyes. Purple robes of a false king
draped around His shoulders. Forced to carry the cross
beam of His cross until He collapsed. Hand forged spikes
driven into His wrists and ankles. Stripped naked and His
clothes gambled away. Hanging in the hot dry sun his parched
lips cooled by vinegar wine. He cried it is finished and gave up
the ghost. His side pierced by a Roman spear to make sure.
A mystery to me why anyone would allow this to happen.
The only answer has to be love. God loved us so much He gave His
only son to die for us. Only He would consent to this and His ways
are beyond our understanding. His life for ours.
It’s been a while when I felt frozen on the ground
Hotchpotches of skills around, I touched them one by one
With overwhelming joy, l took them in one luggage
I hauled and under a stagnant lake, my inertia has engaged.
When a spark of discernment meddled right on time
I focused on one…so light, I float and I climb
I gained, grew and flourished smoothly in each priority
I ascent, pulling others li'l by li'l on a way across…flying freely.
Lumbering bulldozers grind
and rip trees and shrubs
from the empty lots, competing
with gas fumes, the noise
of trucks, and honking horns
on the busy thoroughfare.
Two gracious houses,
once precious home to families,
but long abandoned
and fallen into disrepair,
smashed to kindling,
hauled away for scrap
Just up the grassy hill
behind our senior residence,
we’ll watch another
commercial business go up.
Recent car wash on the corner,
now another bank? Fast food?
Alongside our apartments,
in the past, a Christmas tree farm,
sweet smelling pines replaced
with roads and new homes,
manicured lawns and two-,
sometimes three-car garages.
Countryside eaten away
by ever-increasing population
with insatiable desire for the
shiny, new, bigger and better,
for the quick and easy,
immediate convenience.
Afternoon teas exchanged for
socially beneficial cocktail parties.
Casual-, even sports-wear, in
the finest restaurants, rudeness
and boorish comments the norm,
“Gracious” suffering a slow death.
Fresh from the sea pier
Big tunas shine like silver
As forklifts hauled them.
"A straight! Two-three, five-six and eight,"
but Mildred bleated, "Ain't no straight;
you, Alice-ewe, are one dumb rump."
Bright chortles burbled round the stump
till Jingles raised, "Two straws of hay,"
too rich for Fay-Fay: "I can't play,
though, know that ram hauled in by truck?
I thought he gave me … lotsa luck!"
Suzette guffawed, "Not luck you meant."
"Perv, pigsty's where your mind has went!"
"Well, we all know why he's brung here …"
"Too bad it's only once a year."
"Who poofed?" sneered Molly, "That's so crass!
Wow, someone dined on rancid grass …"
Embarrassed Mildred urged, "Just play,
let's brighten up this gloomy day."
Belle brooded, "Yeah, dawn brings the shears …"
"Well you look cute, nude tail to ears."
"And your sagged udder shows you're old!"
Tense silence fell--that barb was bold--
but Alice, heedless, claimed, "Two pair!"
which drew the wrath of Mildred's stare:
"Two fives, a two with ten on top?
You're one stupid mutton chop …"
Damn the nor’easter
hold the wheel steady
Waves from the Kraken
over the bow
Darkness ahead
charts plot the demon
Into the fury
—doubling down
(Dreamsleep: December, 2023)
...He fell to the snow, choking his last breath,
Dalton watched despite his own fading strength,
Barnes dismounted and walked over to him,
said, “I see that you have found Miller then.”
Dalton just nodded. “They children they had,
I set them free, and they are running west.
You have to find them and help them get back,
they all are so young…weather’s not the best.”
Barnes nodded and said, “We will go get them
once we get you hauled up, onto a horse.”
Dalton shook his head, whispered, “It’s too late,
there’s nothing you can do for me anymore.”
With that he slumped back onto the cold ground,
the rattling growing loud in his chest,
both the marshals frowned, and tool of their hats,
as Dalton went limp with his final breath.
They told all the people of what he did,
and the tale went around for a while,
even though he never got his revenge,
Dalton still managed to die with a smile.
YULETIDE ORIGINS
On the first day of Yuletide
The winter solstice ends
Twelve days until
A new solar year
A feast to the sun
Odin as the god
Pagan origins
Hauled heavy log
Chance to repent
The giving of gifts
Holly and the ivy
And then adopted by Christianity
Once, this hollow
in a washed up fish head held
an eye. Now it's just a skull,
an escapee from a crab pot
where it hung as bait to attract
a wandering claw.
I cradle it in my hands,
its flesh picked back to bone.
I see through its ghostly eye
into a submarine world of weed
and waving fronds tipped
with leathery fruit, spiked urchins,
dancing sea worms
and teeth readied
to seize unwary life.
All seems horror, hidden menace
beneath sand or tucked away
in crevices. There, poison barbs,
razor teeth, gullets big enough
to swallow whole lay in wait
and dream beneath
moving shadows.
And then, cast down from above,
a barbed hook baited
with subterfuge, sharpened
to anchor hard in flesh
and be hauled up to drown
a victim in air.
Fish….forgive me for having
commandeered your eye,
but I have done so to honor
your short life
before I lay your head down
on the soft sand and let
the tide take you away,
forever.
Brooding River
This winter saw a lot of rain in the river near the houses, still running clear and lucid, giving its soul
to the ocean
On the old Roman bridge, I asked the river to stop wasting its precious sweet water on the salty sea
One cannot let thirsty horses drink brackish water
having hauled a cart full of dead sheep up to the mountain top as offering by an idiot savant, a gift
to a god that only exists in feverish minds
The river hears me not, its job is to run dry during the summer for at fall be reborn.
Beware of a river that has no fish!
Those who haughtily laugh will be turned into frogs banks, are full of them, petrified seeing nothing.
Only a princess can make them human again, but they will still retain the souls of frogs.
Alas, due to hard times, the princess is a dancer in a Spanish nightclub, knows nothing about emails, and is not on Facebook.
On the cliff at the Worm’s Head
High above the horns of the bay
I see the surfers ride great waves
With horses’ manes
That ever fail, but never end
In the strong Atlantic surge
In the estuary at Dartmouth
Where the oyster boats dredge
Turning and drifting in slow shadow dance
Great nets of shells are hauled up
And poured out on to the decks
As I plunge upriver
Tacking along the wending Dart
With bent-puzzle oaks on either side
I hear a sudden hush descend
Upon a lonely river hythe
As time and air, smooth and still
Forever glide, like Mayflies
On cold, clear water
In the seaway by the port
With its unmistakable algal aroma
Of the British seashore
I hear the heavy horn of a freighter
That plies its path
And never sinks, yet ever diminishes
Beyond the waves
And far from the pier of the seaside town
Where sandpipers probe
In spiral casts
I hear the penthal call of the curlew
Like silver flourishes on a black cloud
That never moves, but holds dominion
In the cold morning air.
. for public domain
Hauled away in chains alone,
their names are carved in granite stone;
and kings once perched upon a throne,
now long forgotten, lost, unknown.
And yet they did not so live
to be remembered, or to give
us lessons how to live,
to condemn, ignore, or forgive.
They took birth as they took death,
a beginning and an end of breath,
claiming their own sacred hymn.
We forget kings, remember them.
Why does my consciousness get swiftly corroded?
Why my conscience finds itself in contradiction?
Why with strange thoughts, words, and actions mind get loaded?
Why betwixt likes and dislikes there's constant friction...?
Soul soft, as a gentle tender breeze gets soon swayed,
The spirit within, by cares and worries, is hauled;
Cracks in the axle of awareness make verve jade,
My senses, like birds and beasts, in slavery, stalled...!
This is, hence, I have decided to cleanse myself,
All that is making me drown in the sea of dread,
Should be shed and the soul should become a fresh shelf,
Wherein humanness should its motherly wings spread...!
In a bodiless, celestial space now I swim,
All that entrapped me, like a hunter's net, are gone;
Desires defeated heart and mind possess no whim,
Cleansed of all pitch dark clouds I see a dazzling dawn...!
Renunciation and detachment have been born,
And have started dwelling in me, making me light;
Indifferences, like dust in the gale, are blown,
My bond with each being has become rightly tight...!!!
Civilization
They take root
and sprout up like
the corn that used
to fill these fields.
Acres of grassland,
fertile farmland,
and the houses
grow day by day.
Trucks filled with
house parts, baseboards,
light fixtures, windows,
sinks and toilets,
concrete for driveways
ply the muddy streets,
soon to be covered
with macadam.
Forests decimated,
their precious oxygen
gone as the logs
are hauled away
to the paper mill.
Nature gives way
to more civilization.
Animal habitat destroyed.
The tracts mushroom,
first one, then two,
then a hundred, a thousand.
Houses complete,
lawns are tended,
concrete covers patios,
everything neat and tidy
a paean to overpopulation.
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