Windswept

Small white wings flutter, striving for stability in a flushing breeze.

The wind is, itself, is indifferent to the end of its dying breath.

The little symbol of purity vanishes in its gift of flight.

Wrens rest their wings and scurry like raptors on the abandoned roadway.

I stand still to watch them move. Is it I or them who is more aloof?

Story Tellers

 Our lives, so covetously personal, are only parts of the stories woven beyond our understanding by unseen hands; yet we are given more than hands to craft personal lives.

 Eventually, the line between lives and stories are blurred in the seduction of seeing both as one in the same.

 Pride in the craft of building one's own, fosters prominence (even exclusivity) toward the delusion of perceiving there being only one story (a true one) while the secret scribe observes their fallacy of a beginning and an end. 

Unhitched Pendulum

The unhitched pendulum
succumbing to gravity
narrowing the diminutive distance
in swings to and fro between
tolerance and intolerance,
freedom and serfdom,
justice and injustice,
victory and defeat

Sucking each of us
toward the bottom center
to anchor in silence
when all comes to rest.

Dark Rain

A ubiquitous atmosphere of uncertainty
drenched in the stench of distrust
precipitates its parts per billion onto the social fabric
that fortifies collaboration, consensus, and unity
within the tapestry of civil administration.

Dirigible narratives buoyantly navigate the cloudy sky
and glide on the charged particles of repulsion and attraction,
igniting flash points of violence with subsequent roars
and rumbles that diminish signals of assurance
amid the noise.

Dark rain spawns poker- faced fauna
in floral pockets of unintelligible chat and laughter
while girders of cohesion passively crumble
and hope fades to murk in the reclusive exercise
of a preferred silence.

Surroundings

A gentle breeze thrusting small yellowed leaves
wobbling in a short parade
spinning like flat rocks
pitched across the surface of a pond

but in a lofty descent
delicate and graceful
in the briefly sustained trajectory
driven by the airy wisp
seating them sparsely
like the simultaneous landing of sky divers
in a field of grass.

Maker of Wonders

Maker of wonders
wonders
Holding the power
to stop and go
goes

Missing the mark makes mysteries
and gives rise to the birth of context
perfectly

What is perfection without contrast
to be reasonably established?
The unintentional stain
sustained without sanctification

Like all living things
it lives then dies
intermittently in troughs
throughout the frequency of existence

Yesterday's Rain

Yesterday's rain stranded shallow pools
cupped in the sandy and pebbled creek bed
tranquilly resting where the remnants of rainfall
no longer push a fluid stream beyond
what nature had strewn in its path over time.

A calm and serene offering to rooted plants
and trees bordering the narrow vein
claimed by the water lane
bound to deliver the solvent cargo
to its lowest point.

Halted in sculpted basins already carved
granting an unselfish drink on one side
nestled placidly and comfortably today.

Yesterday's rain droplets had clung to high leaves
and twinkled like stars
jostled by a mildly drifting breeze
in silence under widespread sunshine.

Abandoned by the mute swiftness of the glimmering stream
treetops swayed like cheering race fans
as the sparkling gleam of hurried ripples gleaned
over and around fallen twigs newly acquainted
with sandstone rocks of more longstanding residence.

Listening for something I yearned to hear
like unasked questions to my readily made answers

or good news.

Brightly puffed and contoured cumulus clouds moved
through a magnanimous and calmly cheerful blue sky.
A cardinal darted through it whispering good news
in my soul that I wasn't far from home.

Who? What?

My birth year 1951:
I've seen a few futures in hindsight
but never saw them coming.

My line in time
tangled with others
without ever really touching

Crooked
Crimped
Coiled

Hardly textbook straight

A pile of pickup sticks?
not a plausible configuration.
Who is to say who I am?
Once reluctant to accept face value;
now more respectfully considerate
of things as they are.

I carry chapters.
Even one volume
too pretentious to surmise

Besides
the story never ends
with my short thread
of little lines entwined,
a packaged possession
like any other living thing
coated and scattered as dust
from the wizard's thrust,

Swirling in the heat of stars.

Space Crumb

Under the dim light
of twelve stars

hundreds
of thousands
of hectares
of crusty firmament
slowly baking
in arid desolation

A mysterious sphere
without invitations

dangling in the cosmos

awaiting
the zenith of eternity

in indifference
like a giant crumb

untasted
undervalued
overlooked
insignificant

wondering
whether it will be
anointed with raining souls
spewing in the distance
from shooting stars

Fallout from Hate

Tears drip from closed eyes that shelter the soul from the sight of tragedy,
a resistance to the ugly side of truth.

The blood stained rubble is the silent witness in the telling of the unbearable events that had unfolded in this fallout of hate.

Jesus is still weeping.

Words, Ideas, and Imagination

  Although words are commonly and repeatedly used to express ideas, I wonder which precedes the other. A radio program I heard over a year ago about this established residence in my mind and occasionally becomes loosened, stirring the enigma like sediment from the bottom of moving water or objects swirled into debris by the wind. I can't recall whether mention was made of the opening sentence in the Holy Bible, but its mystical profundity endures: "In the beginning there was the word and the word was God."  It's a fascinating proposition to say the least, and reaffirms my belief that words should be used as precisely and carefully as possible.

  If words activate ideas, then what about the imagination? Is imagination a gestation of ideas?  If so, my visualization imbues spores diffused in a medium or spermatozoa racing in their trajectory, a whisking not conducive to the formulation of words.  In this frame, are words even necessary?
 Perhaps asking a musician or following lines and brush strokes on a canvas can answer that.

Anton Chekhov

  In reading the opening chapters of Henri Toyat's biography of Anton Chekhov, I am impressed by the love and dedication he held for his family. Anton became the adult in the room, despite his father's religious fervor in administering harsh, disciplinary rituals entrenched in the framework of Russian Orthodoxy without Christianity's loving spirit. It was Antosha's refined sensibilities, reasoning, and living by example that emanated an instilled religion and morality that filled the void and won the admiration of his siblings and mother who would turn to him for problem-solving (mostly money matters). This led to his ascendance as leader of the Chekhov clan, eventually winning his father's approval late in Anton's life. This came about once the merits of his studious pursuit of becoming a medical doctor and his literary proliferation enabling the family to acquire an estate on the outskirts of Moscow. Anton walked the walk he talked, unlike Pavel, his father.

Spinning Still Yet

Soon losing the light of day
as the earth turns in this dark corner of time
after the bright promise of a beautiful one
had been written in the heavens just this morning

Spinning still yet toward illuminating another dawn
while other bodies in the speckled sky
will keep their secrets and not betray the direction of the movements
leaving us to gamble fairly about whether the immediate hours ahead
either tighten or loosen things

Waking with a scrambled egghead breakfast brain is unhelpful
in understanding the endless continuity that only imaginary lines
drawn        (or opened)
in  befores  and  afters

etch

hurdles over which we leap and crutches on which we cling.

Ever since my childhood awareness of mortality,

I perceived death as a stalker, shadowing me.

I would periodically look back over my shoulders

to ensure my feet were well ahead of it.

Cautionsly, I ran;

it was easier in my youth;

aging can alter the inertia,

skew the pursuit, distorting the gap.

　

Today, I stopped running

to let my thoughts catch a breath,

to pant over the end of this pavement,

the gravel beyond it,

the dirt road beyond that, and farther along

trail ruts and wilderness.

　

The omnous threat felt close on my heels,

almost feeling its hot breath on my neck.

Turning around to face the inevitable,

I was surprised at my impatience with its arrival,

drawing breath after breath,

anticipating the ravaging devour.

Eventually, its approach came into view,

a slow gait quickening in the distance

as if recognizing my stationary stealth,

its excitement proportional to my dread

standing on this self-determined finish line.

　

I closed my eyes and trembled,

fearing the face of its open-jawed countenance.

A sensationless pause opened my eyelids

to see my pursuer; it was the face of my life.

　

Then, I devoured myself.

  The acceleration of political news has moved from measured, dichotomous rhetoric in campaign cycles, where spikes and troughs of public opinion polls crest and dip on a wide scale, to highly intense and narrowed needle swings of frequency fueled by ravenous and ambiguous media. Within the tightening stream of one permanent campaign nowadays, the right vs left slugfest more closely resembles a sustained collision of trembling laser beams that befit an arm wrestling contest.
 
  Moreover, media reports have had an atomizing effect in that each turn in developing events re-assembles particles into potential ideological narratives ripe for packaging into the fray that strengthen the tension in partisan conflicts.

The Last Note

Winded in the shallow breathing,
awaiting closure the last note in life's melody will bring,

Wondering whether it will hold a sustained resonance,
unchecked by the reflexive shadow thought
of a possible time signature ascribing a curt ending.

Regardless

Departing privately with an assurance
that a soul's  thirst is scantly quenched,
rings in the abyss.

It is late autrumn in America
Human kindness has fallen with the leaves
Wind of change blusters to ride atop promises of Winter
Bringing a bitterness that won't melt with snow
Lingering through seasons yet to come

A Dollop

In the stillness of private reflections are filtered desires
secretly spun and woven into pure longing
a fabric earnestly crafted into the simplest form of sincerity
held until it is at least nearly presentable to you.

You, a carton of never ending ice cream
wherein a dollop satisfies so fully
in different flavors of the same love
covered and shared by many
so complete that a spoonful's measure
lasts forever.

Smiles

Interludes of intermittent smiles spot the cloudy skies like sun rays
They often weaken quickly,
 unsustainable, as they all are.
We dare not discount them on such grounds,
especially the involuntary ones
recognized as genuine by grateful onlookers.

Sudden ones splash faces
with a flash of teeth,
while others slowly widen corners of mouths,
so easily discerned in their uniform spontaneity.

I saw one aloft a windswept dress,
uncovered by  breeze-blown strands of long hair
streaming from the jubilant pace of its host;
it was a delightful sight.

Self Absorbed

Heartbeats throb,
Echoing off the walls of my insularity
Bouncing back
on ME!

The ONE
all encompassing,
self-edifying
soul.