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

Pathétique

“Tormented” by Helena Wierzbicki

 

in a secret black box
with tarnished lead locks

sit wings that I ripped
from faeries who slipped

through fencing I built
from splinters of guilt

no room in my mind
for tiny unkind

impish creatures
whose features

would mock and remind
of crimes I resigned

to bury down deep
inside wrinkles of sleep

I pierced them like thrips
with ragwort stem tips

then chewed them to mash
in a mouthful of ash

and set down my head
near the foot of the bed

on the secret black box
with tarnished lead locks

 

 

From my books Range of Motion and Legacies (vol. 1)

Three Fingers, Three Rocks

“Bourbon Whiskey” by Aleksey Vaynshteyn

 

it squats on the floor

at my feet

staring up at me

taunts me with

heartbeats and whispers

that force me to listen

it shows up at hours

I find inconvenient when

nothing but time and

three fingers three rocks

should be mine all alone

in my savor of earned

blissful mindlessness

damn this intrusion

this arrogant animal

sticking itself to my

carpeted shadow

its all too familiarness

quashing the peace

of an evening

my solitude ruined

indulgence in sweet

meta-ethical unity

dashed by discomfort

of prickling reflection

brought on by its

mad grinning presence

enjoying its powers

of torment

beyond polite reason

 

 

(From my book Ephemera)

Frail Virtue

“Lady in a Green Jacket” by August Macke

 

(This expressionist painting has always fascinated me and gave rise to my following poem.)

 

what more can be said
when apologies cannot suffice
when all charity drains
from mean wounds to the heart
the aggrieved turn away
leaving evident guilt
unrelieved unforgiven
alone with the sin of itself

a contemptible factor of loss
now condemned to sustain
psychic pain of abandonment
punishment served
without pretense of piety
grace all too frail of a virtue
untenable so it would seem
for the most of humanity

It’s Not Their Wings

“Eagle Eye” – Image from pinterest.com

 

why do birds have eyes
for creatures
no others can see
what have they done
to earn private feast
biologically blessed
exalted by mute evolution
with powers to
measure and judge
every nuance
of movement
within seas of motion
like wavering acres
of tall flowing grass
or lamentable thoughts
that escape
down the cheeks
of a guilt-shaken man

(originally posted November 2013)

Dispositive

 

“Falling Shapes” by TheChariot77

 

 

you sling my shoulders with your grapples

climb the back of my legs with your barbed-wire toes

coming higher and closer intent

for the unguarded portals that lead to my brain

I can’t reach behind me to swat you away

my arms just don’t work that way anymore

so I do the one thing I can think of

to keep you from reaching my vulnerability

with a rush I leap backwards and heave myself

crashing the window

for an instant I feel your fear crunch against glass

that explodes as we fly through its showering shards

you still cling for your life as we sail through the air

for seconds or centuries

deafened by the updraft our downfall creates

I’m surprised to see others are falling beside us

people who died in the near and far past

escorting our flight as they reach out

and yank you away from my flesh

overwhelmingly soothing relief floods my senses

I see you in pieces below on the ground

and notice the wind in my ears growing softer

I’m slowing

more floating than falling and find

I’m embraced by the ghosts who still love me

who judge me unworthy of punishment

not so much innocent

moreso not guilty

deserving to live yet another new day

invested with trust of their faith

that I’ll make good their gift

of my soul saving rare

second chance

 

 

(originally posted May 2013)

Impostor

“Little Bird” by Alex Cherry

failure lurks in her house of success

in cruel beauty of mirrors

reflecting her highly made fiction

the mind in a bind of coherence

that chokes off the impulse of pride

with its fraudulent fingers inflicting

arcane wounds of doubt upon triumph

embarrassed by dint of her certainty

accolades laid at her feet are but

musty bouquets of dead flowers

rewards of unmerited merit

untrustworthy genius

or is this the credulous stuff

of in vogue pop-psychology

missing the simple indicia

that here is a bastardized strain

of a tendent raw human humility

caught in the death-grip of guilt

a congenital outgrowth perhaps

of one’s living a thespian’s life

inside lives that sprang whole

from no more than a pen

Damned

“Inferno” by Marina Petro

(A modest homage to Dante)

 

 

abandon hope all ye who enter here

melt into the matrix of unclean souls

become one with the stygian night

a miasma of ill-conceived dreams

swirls in cornerless shadows aflame

with dead screams in a sulfurous air

down unspeakable steps of gauged agony

leading to the basest of sinners who

practiced betrayal as branded by Judas

caught frozen for time beyond end

in perpetual pain of the ice-pit

fourth nethermost ring of the final

ninth circle where the faces of Satan

make meals of the fear and the guilt

come too late to the worst of the damned

Man in the Moon

“Man in the Moon” by Adam Pitschke

it’s all there in his face

disappointment etched deep

barren hollows of light

cut by blue shades of dark

giving features their fame

sleepless sentinel

witness to eons of moments

unchangeably formed

from my seasons of sin

an empathic astronomy

given in portrait of pain

he was once of my species

a brother abruptly broken away

in the age of the chaos

cast into the ether

affixed to my gravity

nonplussed but watchful

inured to his exile

nourished by nothing but

slow-flowing syrup of time

never sure of remorse

for himself or for me

inasmuch as we both

bear the burdens of guilt

that built history

Remembering to Never Forget

“No Names” by Alice Lok Cahana 

 

one smoldering mind
immolated a continent
blackened the skies of
the world evermore
stained the skin of
complicit humanity
marking each man
then alive and born since
all his children and
those yet to follow
through all that remains
of this bleak haunted
age of our kind
we depraved and
conveniently blind
marking every last wretch
of us sons of Cain all
with indelible guilt
for the numbers
the numbers
oh God damn us all
with regret of creation
lamenting the numbers
the numbers
the skin and bone
atavist shock of
those numbers

(originally posted January 2014)