Abyss

 

Double Crested Cormorant by Audubon

a cormorant settles
the swell of my chest
lunar tides ebb and flow
beneath rice paper skin
its blue disc of an eye
tracks anonymous prey
lurking somewhere
within fleshy oceans
vague shadows that dart
near the surface elicit
its quarter note calls
before plunging its beak
into tumbledown tissues
diving the chasm where
once beat a heart at the
precipice gone now to
swallowing depths out
of sight sunk in endless
black swirls ever down
into bottomless madness

 

 

From my books Bohemian Scents and Legacies (vol. 1)

 

Dislocation

 

“The Vagaries of Luck” by Alejandro Montañez

 
old minds new things

incompatible concepts

change comes on like a train

sound and fury and speed

compose calculus of fear

the terrors of infirmity

facing new regimens

details unknown

unforeseeable therapies

incomplete panoplies

unrecognizable faces

peer out from the shadows

what spaces await

disobedient bones

to accommodate

badly turned plans

no grave will be made

in a north country forest

whose trees will have

since disappeared

like their very own

leaves of a season

the once cherished

rural aesthetic forsaken

by force of the flesh

the unkindness of time

will decide where and when

for new endings

the power to write them

transferred and invested in

vagaries given to chance

Bone Tree

“Landscape with Gnarled Tree” by William Lester Stevens

 

wood shot through with knots

gnarled by labors of conscience

limbs weakened by guilt

too many storms took their toll

too little time to earn grace

Summer Pond

Image from Richa Art Club

 

placid glimmerglass sheen
stretched canvas of forest and sky
but I can’t find my youth
in the diurnal scud of the clouds
flying faster and further
from halcyon days in the sun
cooled by frolicsome leaps
with my dog from the dock
diving into the depths of my future

now I sit here in invalid’s pose
on the bench that I built with
my pals sixty summers ago
propped and pained by the
memories clenched in my hands
with a flick of my least impaired
arthritic wrist I give sail to a
perfectly triple-skipped stone
breaking into a smile in excelsis

 

 

From my book Pieces of Wine

Bandstands

“Belper River Gardens Bandstand” by Andy Mayers

 

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

 

 

From my books City of Pawns, Music of Scars and Legacies (vol. 1)

No Time for Old Men

“Old Tramp” by Laszlo Mednyanszky

 

it arrived in a downpour

this too-modern morning

my black and blue flesh

unprepared still not finished

with yesterday’s mayhem

and misery no time to bind

broken bones of the night

now the dawn cracks with

onslaught new gunfire rain

melting all my resolve into

rivers of abject surrender

 

 

From my book Pieces of Wine

Disabled

“Broken Forms” by Franz Marc

 

flesh and bone prisons
can’t incarcerate minds
no matter the crime

 

 

From my books Pieces of Wine and Riverthink

Transmutation

 

“Change (Self Portrait)” by Lucy Jane Purrington

 
fighting the feeling

the uselessness

weary and wasted

the hands and legs

given to ghosts

abled only by sleep

a subconscious

performance of

memory bones

disobedient

muscles distrusted

flawed senses of

touch and of sight

unreliable failing

all joy of the doing

reduced to the wist

of the thinking

the mind

now resigned

dispossessed

of a vigorous

fleshly appliance

puts paid to the

reign of the body

Papá

Papa c. 1938

 

there once lived a man

a truly good man

the only man ever

in the history of popes

of prelates and pilgrims

to walk

with stout legs of a horseman

healthy and hale

fearless with faith

upon Bernadette’s path

and into the grotto

where he knelt in devotion

and prayed

then arose

with emergent affliction

a permanent

cripple

mocked by the castoff

crutches and braces

festooning that shrine

it happened

so sayeth the scriptures

by his bitterless hand

in the bible

bearing our names

it happened

in the year of our Lord

when I was conceived

his auxiliary legs

 

 

(originally posted April 2013 – one of many poems I wrote for my father)

Gentle Madness

Image from pinterest.com

sensual shadows

drink a purpling moon

teasing dull silken glimmer

from scarves in their dance

along aubergine hollows

of candlelit thighs

softly flickering

fragrant with passion’s ablution

demure glints from peridot eyes

heighten moments

then falter and fade

receding beneath

the dim surface of time

in weak torture of

reconciled memory

 

 

(originally posted October 2013)