“Persistence”
Painting by Liang Yi Er
From pictify.com
well laid persistence
will defeat the twin tyrants
chance and destiny
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All posts for the month October, 2013
magic lies within
amoral impurities
of yellow gold
circlets inscribed
with runic symbols
turned inward
on sanctified skin
powers penetrate
fortified fingers
overwhelming
retrograde skeptics
with confident peace
in contented alliance
to carry the years
powers that deflect
life’s punishing blows
with a two-sided shield
emblazoned with
sketches well blended
in portraits
revealing one face
powers that bend to
enwind iron strands
forming singleton
entity wearing
linked curves of
the lemniscate
promise of always
powers that convert
selfish forces
of ego into
cardiac passions
of selflessness
born of organic
commitment
powers that anneal
through diamond hot
passion compressing
one whole weighing
more than its halves
fused with more than
half-volumes of bliss
powers to create
from unhesitant love
new beginnings
new life in the thriving
embrace of a family
eagerly poised
for the future
powers to heal wounds
inflicted by age
with a mutual touch
of fingertip…
View original post 14 more words
deceit hastens end
of trusting relationships
truth never expires
Broken Baseball Bat
Photo from checkswing.com
splintered travesty
sharp from the split
calving crashes of will
between old rival
friends swinging hard
their milled timber
opposing opinions
crack shattering
baseball bat duels
leaving wounds
for a moment
but never a lifetime
round gazebos, pavilions
and pergola octagons
stood village greens
crowded with summers
of swirled cotton candy
and lemonade mason jars
drawn into innocent
haphazard circles
of lawnchairs and wickered
fried chicken and pies
here fat politicians
in straw hats and vests
with a flask in each pocket
blew clouds of cigar smoke
and fogbanking speeches
across crinkled buntings
between martial music
played slightly off key
over lawns packed with bowties
and gingham checked modesty
children roamed happily
innocence safely
preserved among apricots
peaches and plums
wanting blue ribbon samples
while learning to sing
stirring patriot songs
alive with the civics
that promised fulfilling
tomorrows ahead
this once was America
land of my birth
where my parents came
seeking and finding
their most cherished dreams
this once was America
long before she and I
fell down disabled
from festering mordant
internal disease
edged with a backcurve
evoking a moon hung
in crescentic phase
symbolic of war
masquerading as peace
shaped for the slash
horseback histories
and executioners
fit to infidel necks
“Gaslight” by Anthony Harris
faces fall into collars
heavy with sallow
cast ill-at-ease under
gaunt lamplighter globes
indistinct luminescence
in moist opaque fog
shadows throw their
flat mysteries splashed
across pavements then
climb up bricklaid grimy
walls to a tallness both
eerie and handsome
while brass buckles glint
from highwaymen’s boots
making dull wood-heeled
cobblestone clicks in
their escort of whispering
crinoline bustles
here in bleak alleyway
gridworks died centuries
swallowed by darkness
till Pall Mall was gasified
bringing its secrets to light
and consignment to flames
(originally posted October 2013)
“Day Lit Moon”
Painting by Christine Kane
From fineartamerica.com
the day moon unnerves me
it seems so celestially wrong
some grave glitch in the gearworks
that govern the progress of orbs
how will night and day keep
to their schedule of duties
to regulate body clock humors
of passion or breast-beating prayers
will wolves choke back hesitant howls
tides turn on themselves
leaving lovers to gaze into nothing
but faint tiny pinpricks of starlight
it seems so unfair to give one
half the world moon and sun
side by side while depriving them both
to the other half stumbling in darkness
what altar will cradle your bones
anoint them in wine
when already red-soaked
infested with vines
they want no redemption
and couldn’t care less
if they’re damned
will they dance their escape
from an ill-fitting grave
or stumble and fall
with a rickety clamor
out of all visual memory
so tearlessly sad
those bones
didn’t live long enough
to lie in an elderly coffin
didn’t live strong enough
to make deep impression
leaving instead
mere dents on some minds
from cirrhotic splinters
you turned into
soft mealy knives
make an exit
one way or another
too quiet, too soon
too alone and ungrieved
or robust and riotous
dying out loud
leaving long wrinkled trails
of wailing and gnashing
and legacies
hot enough
to burn up the world
Secrets of creation hide deep in conflation
Of science with faith, of corpus with wraith,
Discrete bits of essence, immune from senescence,
That mark each warm creature, or cold lifeless feature,
Of all the known world, plus those unknown, thus hurled
Through vastness of space, push-pulled in their chase
By grave forces, unseen, save by eyes utmost keen
As detectors of naught, who find nothingness caught
By the physics of sleight, in mathematical light,
Racing outward, away from a focal array,
From a radiant heart that outburst apart
With the first stroke of time, Divine in its prime.
Before that release, all was soundless still peace,
When all matter, all dust, was consigned to the trust
Of that heart, then mere speck, the one salient check
Against stark eternity, charged with modernity,
Then, slowly it swelled, its inertia unquelled,
Now a tumescent part that grew into that…
View original post 51 more words
Poesy plus Polemics 