Poetry

Whistle Down the Night

The sparkle of the crystals gives a vibrance to the snow
As reflecting stars at midnight lend tiaras to the glow.
Trees hide gentle goblins ‘neath their covert arms of gray –
The night takes full possession of the lands of conquered day.

The lane slides softly forward toward the rustling of the leaves
As winds whip wild patterns ‘round the brackets in the eaves.
Moon-glow creeps full-shrouded thru the autumn clouds of steel
While down the fog-drenched valley night-bells start their distant peel.

With trembling brow I plod on towards the fireside at the inn
Where I know the brew is burbling and will warm me from within.
But while I walk this roadway dank my eyelids quake with fright
So I strike a jaunty posture and I whistle down the night.

 

If I am Afraid

If I am afraid
It is for you.
The knot upon my chest is not for me.
I cope in my way, and tell myself I win, and am content.

But as for you –
I do not know …
Please nest beneath my wings,
I am afraid it soon shall start to rain.

Omar

Leaves powder yellow
Upon windowsills,
Drooping and cracking,
Rotting to dust.

Flowers curl brownly
Still on the stem,
Harden and sicken,
Flaking to rust.

Streams eddy grayly,
Brackishly dozing,
Weakly attempting
To regain the flow.

All pass on some day,
Pass into blackness,
“I came like Water,
And like Wind I go.”

Baudelaire

In this place I felt her coming
Clock-like, ticking, tacking, talking,
Crying in her whining stammer –
A promise broken before its making,
The small of wet-grass on an autumn morning.

They sung a Mass on Sunday last
With Medieval incantation,
Flat in conception, gross in pretension.
She was Christ in an aureole
And I – God the Father.

Now with darkness ring the Church bell
Heralding sinister devotions
Not unlike the pious suctions –
Sweat midst sheets with God embroidered,
We sing chansons of Baudelaire:

Alors, o ma beaute, dites a la vermine
Qui vous manger de baisers,
Que j’ai garde la forme et l’essence divine
De mes amours decomposes!

Do Not Call This Morning

I have slept well
In my personal hell –
Awoke to the bell
And the smell
Of coffee and the dawn.

Do not call
And undo all
That sleepy thrall
That makes the pall
Fade out at morn.

Distraction

There is a suspended hour
Hung twixt twelve and dawning
That, at the birth of morning,
Opens full the flower.

Here midst sterile pollen
Upon pistols of decay
I stripped the sword away
From the warrior who had fallen.

Scared rats dig slanting holes
Thru the frame of buried armor,
While those whose thoughts were calmer
Bored their tunnels through his soul.

Diffuse

I rolled upon pillows
And sloshed into sheets.
I was
indiscreet.
I bowed as willows.
I wavered as teats.
I was
incomplete.
I cried
and tried
But truth lied
And left me quite inept inside.
I am core without shell.
I am essence.
I diffuse.
You do not understand.

Better Worlds

Tho I could not see you til tomorrow
The certainty assailed my image of it.

If I should lose illusion,
Surrender to confusion
(of realities (yesterdays))
In many ways
I’d be the poorer for it.

The truth of what could be but for
Suffices
Entices
And turns out to be more.

April

The blackest flower within my craw
Reaches toward the April sky
To suck into its tepid maw
The rain that whets its evil eye.

All gardens of my past delights
Are filled with rotting plants of youth,
Which bloom their fill in languid nights
And bleed to death on aged truth.

Apprehension

The image to my mind occurs
but not unto my heart.
The tremblings in my thoughts are born
and cause my fears to start.

The visage thru my eye is swept
upon a field of flame.
The anguish, risen from the fire,
anvil-tempered, flame-wrought, came.

But worry not, my viscera-core
(insular depths, sunk and apart):
The image to my mind occurs
but not unto my heart.