Donne Died Too Young to Know

“The Island” by Oznat

 

an old man is an island
reduced to himself
to the hard wretched crags
and the desolate soil of aging
cut off from his yesterdays
oceans of time
span the distance
to lands of his life
to his people and places
and purpose of days

the long continent
built with his hands and his heart
hides behind the horizon
hull down lie his passions
the memories made
while engaging the world
joyous peaks barely visible
under the edge
of a shriveling sky

he is far from the knell
of the funeral bell
yet can’t help but hear it
a resonance inside his bones
tolling tolling
the clang of his name
the interior noise
of his personal pain
thrumming nerves
to the terrible tock
of a terminal clock

and it all comes to pass
without stirring
the powerful surface of time
from its heaving
no slightest disturbance
diminishes
mountains and valleys
who ebb and then flow
by cold breath of the moon

and it all comes to pass
quite apart from the main
never troubling
the uninvolved
indifferent minds of
the rest of mankind

 

*****************************************

 

No Man Is an Iland by John Donne

No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man
is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe
is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as
well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine
owne were; any mans death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

Fake News

“Diamonds and Lies” by Brenda York

 

above the treeline

voices carry forever

circling the globe

every lie ever told

weightless words

shallow breaths

of thin air lifted

swiftly on currents

corrupt in their

power to populate

credulous minds

with insidious facts

of dishonesty

misinformation

combining with

disinformation

accomplish the

very worst kinds

of deception

creating electronic

truths bearing

echoes of gospel

An Opioid Moon

“Manganese Moon” by Ann Craven

 

underneath the round gaze

of an opioid moon

he suffers no sleep

kept apart from his dreams

of a painless old age

held in place

by the icy blue bonds

of a wintry despair

the cold light of the night

sears the air

burns his breath

every exhale

a whisper of prayer

for a clear minded morning

a sobering sunrise

of sorrowful thoughts

about living in snatches

between heavy dosages

body and mind numbing

intervals measuring

secants of clocks

who cut time into

broad languid wedges

too hot and too cold

of a nonce all at once

a biopsychology

thrown out of balance

insensible but for odd

now-and-then slivers

of miniscule moments

the treatment alas

comes as hard as the pain

dear the cost

sheer the terror

afflicting addicting

the living of life

underneath the round gaze

of an opioid moon

State of War

“Looking Down the Trail” by James Pollock

 

hours fall heavily
in parables of flesh
breathing labored
and drawn from
black wells fouled
by wild suspicion

sighs rise and
converge in a
violent dirge
filled with echoes
of Banquo’s
dead conscience

this killing by kings
who kill kings
may redound to
their legends but
never to quietly
suffering subjects

war flows among
yearnings at times
a mere trickle
more often a flood
in whose wash swim
the corpses of angels

 

 

From my book Pieces of Wine

Glass Acuities

 

“Day of Glass” by Erich Heckel

 
sand and ash
plain ideas
made from
granular thought
come to bond
in the heat of
intelligent fire
transformed in
that singular
chalice of bone
conscious crucible
elements changed
intellectual alchemy
purges impurity
giving release from
the sins of obscurity
rendered transparent
no longer a solid
not yet quite a liquid
a slow-moving
pensive deliberate
shapelessness
seeking some nobly
provocative form
ineluctably cooled
into choices of
permanence
ethically clear
artful lenses or
vessels admitting
of light the full
spectrum of truth
able now to be
sharply discerned
and displayed
defined starkly and
wholly accessible
no more excuses or
errors of judgment
but truth must be
handled with care
revelation can startle
and clarity can blind
sand and ash
plain ideas
the mean friable
substance of
unrefined minds
though they undergo
wizardry burned
and then turned
into beautiful glass
brilliant specimens
smoothly well-reasoned
exquisite exhibits of
vitreous wisdom
are evermore fragile
yes those
even those
best and highest
expressions of
artisan minds
can be easily shattered
by the merest
oblivious flick from
a philistine boor

Beginnings

“Pillars of Creation” – Photo by Hubble Telescope

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 heart
Whose eruption destroyed the limitless void,
And sent forth material, mixed with ethereal
Substance that surged, until order emerged
That conformed to base laws, posed by God as first cause,
And the cosmos took form in a most perfect storm
Whose primordial strife gave way to first life.

 

 

(originally posted here April 2013 – written years before)

 

Casus Belli

“Confrontation” by Werner Drewes

(Regarding the Charlottesville protest violence)

 

which is the twitch

to trigger oblivion

knobs of maniacal

red yellow green

black and white

flashing lights

insane signals

to throw them all

throttle arms

balls-to-the-wall

all the bonfire words

of automatons

burnt to hot cinders

in mouths of

a motorized terror

extreme right and left

pistoned impulses

hard driven hatreds

smash out against

symbols repugnant

intolerance mutual

placards and flags

hoisted high

on hysteria

fascist machines

confront

fascist behaviors

alike yet opposed

in pitched battle

for putative

high ground

across the deep

social divide

mighty engines

excited with power

from factions whose

steampunk moralities

scream in the cogs

of an overhot animus

gears gnash and tear

in a terrible grinding of

clockwork catastrophe

violent implosions

send disarranged

metals and minds

cutting swaths

through the firmament

maiming the flesh

of philosophy

killing the discourse

annealed by opinion

a bloodletting

garish and crude

apparatus of intellect

shattered and scattered

among the mechanical

corpses who litter

an ungodly ground

and the rest of us

here in the smelted

political middle

deserving of wounds

count as casualties

For You

 

Photo from pinterest.com

 

 

if I could but dance

I’d lead you through waltzes round rays of the sun

and speed you through polkas, mazurkas on end

 

if I could but jump

I’d pluck the bright stars to adorn your fair hair

and tuck the moon tenderly into your lap

 

if I could but run

I’d race the fleet winds across mountains and glens

and chase down each songbird for your serenade

 

if I could but walk

I’d stroll with your hand in mine up country lanes

cajole the world’s blossoms to sweeten our way

 

if I could but stand

I’d fold you in close like I did when we met

and hold tight forever your heart against mine

 

(originally posted April 2013)

Eiffel Tower

Painting by Karen Tarlton

iron wrought from rebellion
a pylon to gracefully pierce
the blue skin of the sky
an inaugural century carried
by elegant lattice and truss
to the heights of new history
footings embedded in blood
of the montagnard terror
that laid to their graves the
last members of ancien régime
disappeared by the guillotine
dead to all memory hidden
forever and future beneath
its tall prominent shadow

this tower proud symbol of
conflict resolved stands in
green martial fields where the
legions of Caesar rehearsed
subjugation of solipsist cities
where fascism fell of its fallacy
ancient and terribly modern
this tower as icon stands firm
alongside Marianne and the
tricolor filling republican hearts
of all Frenchmen embraced by
the spirit of violent uprise
and deadly reprisal the ethics
attending compelled revolution

liberté, égalité, fraternité,
ou la mort

Damaged

 

“Speeding Train” by Ivo Pannaggi

 

 

a train runs through my brain
it rattles the glass of my spine
driving payloads of pain across
tracks of dark neurons that spark
in black cracks of dead bones
it keeps picking up speed racing
farther away from the moment
they split me apart just to lift out
my heart leaving microbes
to seed their invasion and set
down to feed on my parts that
once dreamed of a gentle old age

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)