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)

 

Thaumaturge

 

“Abstract Morality” by TD Breslawski

 
homely saint or savant rare of mind
bearing gifts of great obvious secrets
unpretentious he comes
to the campfires of nations of men
stepping into the aura of flames
easy embers enlighten the night
his soft speeches sing settled
and sanguine predictions of
all that the future makes possible
men above all of God’s creatures
instinctively know the right answers
and yet despite rational acumen
live with such moral confusion
as if truth were somehow a mystery

oh what wonders to behold
the deft working of miracles
wrought by his gestures of hands
magic thunderbolts brought
from the folds of his robe
strike the space between earth
and the air with a crackling brilliance
all the power of time since antiquity
now in this moment here for the taking
the breathing of history’s wisdom
one noble man among men
to remind us that right and wrong
come to the grasp of the anyman
willing to hear his own heartbeat

Hard Lessons

Painting by Jim Dine

 

mistakes of the heart

when love takes more than it gives

teachable moments

Artifacts

“Harlequin’s Carnival” by Joan Miro

emotions have geometry

itinerant objects that occupy

psychic articulate space

between thoughts and beliefs

all these temporal artifacts

transient fleet or persistent

they bear their own

boneless dimensions

hues marking identity

recognized even by

dullest of minds

but they cannot be held

no hand can caress them

or punish their shapes

they are born live and die

by inherent volition

a mystical spark

always felt never touched

for to do so would

trigger oblivion

ripping the mind

from the heart

from the soul

leaving nothing but someone

like those we have seen

walking aimless

 through meaningless lives

never knowing the joys

of knowing the self

(originally posted October 2013)

Pathetic

“Selbstbildnis als Kranker” by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

 

blue heart on a sleeve
cunningly vulnerable
baiting sympathy
not so much dishonesty
as erstwhile self-respect

 

 

(originally posted October 2013)

Under the Knife

“A Broken Eye Still Cries” by Marsha Elliott

 

 

counting backwards into the ether

rush of moments remembered

illogical sequence of images

flash like the frames of a movie reel

speeding through sprockets

a ratcheting ratcheting diminuendo

pulls consciousness deep

down and down to the void

the black bottom of nothing

where pain can no longer be felt

but is nonetheless

horridly dreamt and imagined

aware of the cutting

through gristle and bone

vicious violent strokes

precise surgical actions

in synch with unhearable

rhythmical beats of insidious

heart and lung pumping machines

life no longer completely contained

to this flesh and blood entity

shared now instead with

strange grim apparatus

inanimate engines and objects

of rubber and plastic and steel

where the unsleeping soul

finds uncomfortable annex

and desperate prayer

races to and fro coursing through

stiff inarticulate hoses and tubes

back and forth between

mindful and mindless receptacles

frantic in search of a terrified voice

Tempo

 

“Divine Heart” by Belinda Capol

 

 

poets think to the beat of the heart
they dream in its chambers
tap nourishing vessels
pull feelings through stanzas
that if they are lucky
will synchronize readers
relaxing persistent resistance
to verse as an art form
that satisfies organic yearnings
for rhythmic esthetics
that pulsate the human condition

 

 

(originally posted November 2013)

Starshine

“Night Sky” by Nikol Wikman

impressing the stars
such ridiculous folly
the light in their eyes
is so achingly old
they won’t see you
for millions of years
and by then
they’ll have watched
birth and death of
uncountable splendidly
interesting worlds
do you think the brief
speck of a spark
that was you
will have mattered at all

if you do
then I’ll make you
a place in my heart
where I keep a conviction
that every life
matters a lot
more than starshine
can ever record
or will likely remember

(originally posted December 2013)

Reminder

“Vanishing Point” by Michael Lang

news of death unexpected

a colleague from heydays

a merciless storm of old

memories lashes the mind

heaving clouds come to clash

with a violence that bleakens

the internal sky sending bolts

of electrical sorrow to strike

at the heart halt its beat

for a moment of painful

arrhythmic condolence

a permanent brand left behind

one more lesion to join all the

other memorial burn marks

that uglify tremulous skin

of a pulsing organic affinity

weathered and wearied by loss

bradycardic by tenebrous time

spirit woeful and indolent

wary of clocks trying hard

to remember the chimes of a

friendship now come to its end

news of death unexpected

recurring reminder that hours

and heartbeats diminish

with increasing speed

in approach of their

time and space

vanishing

points

Questo Cuore

 

“Tuscan Sunset” by Marjorie Rand

 

heart made of Italian sun

bearing sadness of ages

burnt umber memories

work to dilute and subdue

its emotional light

the old radiant gold

of an ambient peasantry

given a somber new cast

beating slower and softer

worn to low burnish by

remnants of time dipped in

ancestral ashes of change

ashes laid down in layers

by weakening flames

of this elderly fire