The Hour of the Wolf

Tattoo Design Sketch by Elias Grosch

the long midnight

steals in between

moontide and morn

aching clocks turn

my anguish of time

slowed and heavy

with deadening fear

the wolf stalking

my darkness finds

scent of my life

filled with pain

he gives forth with

an unearthly howl

to assemble his

ravening pack

for an unhurried

meal of my mind

Scrapbook

 

Image from pinterest.com

 

 

arrange me with care
among mother’s gardenias
life leather-embossed

 

 

(originally posted November 2013)

Dining Alone

 

“The Empty Chair” by Janet Felts

 

 

a chair no one sits
at a table set for tears
war’s furniture

 

 

(originally posted November 2013)

Remember Tomorrow Today

 

“Tomb of the Unknown Soldier #10” by Axel Ventura

 

halberds and hubris

hatchets and hatreds

armaments dragged

through the terrible

tides of repetitive

ignorant histories

killing fields run with

red wave after wave

humanity’s bloodshed

collected in morbid

black pools in which

drown and dissolve

tragic sacrificed

white bones of youth

reft of innocence

whole generations

the best of us

taken from time to

their premature tombs

stolen links from

the past to the future

great violent gaps in our

means of becoming

more noble more wise

and more civilized

casualties number

the holes in the soul

of society leaving but

evermore woebegone

chance to attain a more

peaceful posterity

Panis Angelicus

“Healing Angel” by Breten Bryden

 

helplessness
wanting wings
takes the bread
of redemption

anticipates grace
through doxology
chanted in
penitent tones

feeling fortified
exits the doors
to a growingly
secular world

(originally posted November 2013)

The Catalan Lisp

 

“Barcelona” by Ana Maria Edulescu

 

softened sibilance

charming distinction

a lilting of grace-notes

touches the tongues

of poets and peasants

in liege to the pennon

of red yellow stripes

crown of aragon

ruling with sea-speak

of past thalassocracy

sweetened by language

of romance and empire

warm and seductive

as the balear sun

a language now given

expression in tangible

modernist forms

architectural phrases

of reverent eccentric

glissade by gaudí

la sagrada familia

Sundown

 

Image from pinterest.com

 

 

stop the shadows
please stop them
already too lengthened
stretching my stick figure
legs tall as ambulant trees

head drawn darkly
in sharp angled
chimney-stack silhouette
hideous with an
elongated scream

reaching closer toward
end of day
wanting to touch
that dead moment
of sundown oblivion

 

 

(originally posted November 2013)

Window-Washer

 

Image by 4×6

 

 

scaffold and hoist
wash the faces of commerce
but stains remain set
where the pigeons took roost
and investors were filleted

 

 

(originally published November 2013)

D.C.

 

“Washington DC Skyline” by Michael Tompsett

 

 

grand structures
of limestone and granite
civic citadels
splendid and squalid
with privilege

grand structures
shield sinister motives
and unsanctioned power
preserving illusions
of republic

grand structures
presenting distress
cracked façades
mourned by masons
of liberty

 

 

(originally posted November 2013)

Gifts

“Sawmill” by Claude Croney

 

birch and beech
gave their flesh
to the sawyer
whose water-wheel
mill cut rough
medium craftsmen
composed with
a vision refined
by fine finishing
hands into objects
that pleased
antiquarians
timeless wood
legacies bearing
warm smooth grained
affections of ancestry

(originally posted in November 2013)