Mortality

“The Dark Night” by Alison Lawlor

dark night of the soul

long running beyond

the marked moments

cadenced by beats of

the clock of the heart

no orbit of planets

will influence time

in the war between

bodily pain and cruel

tortures of mind

it can last for a lifetime

perpetual violence

wracking raw flesh

and blood places

the sunless and airless

pink spaces where

life should find

sweet affirmation

where body and soul

should reach blissful

concordium

nonetheless here is the

permanent battle engaged

pitting forces of spirit

against vicious powers of pain

every moonrise occasions

another new skirmish

enlarging the conflict

a blooding of more and more

cognitive acres

mortality never more vivid

than now in this deadly

dark night of the soul

At Long Last

“Agony Doubled Over in Flames on Wood” by M. Zimmerman

 

look for me underneath rocks
heavy maladies crushing my bones

behind desiccate trees where I
carved my pain into the bark

listen for stiff labored breathing
amid soundless sobs of the night

when you find me
be gentle but kill me

I won’t love you
but I’d still be grateful

when a star burns its last
it curls into itself

becomes small in forever
black speck a cold cinder

unseen but at long last
now free of the fire

 

 

From my book Bohemian Scents

Man on Fire

“Hell Flowers” by Kazuya Akimoto

 

see me as I am
eyes won’t suffer
from the sight
red and raw
skin afire
the arson of age
burns from
inside the nerves
melting myelin
drips from old
photographs
cracked in the
creases that smile
through flames
I need no one to
pity my pictures
all men wear
a future the past
could not see
whether better
or worse time
adds parts to a man
and his personal
pain cannot ever
outlive him

see me as I am
not the man
I had been nor
the one you imagine
reach into my fire
touch the scars
where they blaze
mapping wounds
cruel inflicted by
weapons of mind
ugly beauty exists
in the flesh
of this world
don’t turn from it
don’t let the smoke
veil your vision
with tears
all fire like life
is ephemeral
give me a place
in your memory
cool and correct
of identity give
me that chance for
my truth to survive

 

 

From my books Ephemera and Legacies (vol. 2)

Zero Gravity

“Resolving Power” by Matthew Stone

 

weightless in freefall
sweet inner space rhapsody
blissful is the dream
unoppressed by the agony
reigning wakeful hours

float in the freedom
burdens banished to the breeze
remember the feel
exquisite delight drawn from
years of easy bravado

 

 

From my books Ephemera and Riverthink

Survival

“Survival” by Abe Weiner

 

the fight keeps the pain alive

hurting and living synonymous

suffering gives proof of life

wars of body and spirit waged

balls-to-the-wall without mercy

determined unwavering fearless

clenched fists steel-set jaw

gnashing teeth fury red in the eyes

ruthless weapons of weaponless

combat the courage entailing the

fight is what gives life its worth

at least that’s what I’ve come to

discover about my own truth

 

 

From my book Ephemera

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

Ready

“Man in Bleak Landscape” by Theodore Major

 

a damnable nuisance this dying
one lengthy entr’acte between
drama of body and finale of soul
an existence at margins of shadows
a uselessness trapped within rattling
ribs caging terror attending the wait
never knowing the when of the end
to dysfunctional chewing on clocks
between prayers raised for clemency
hoping for judgment respectful of sin
prematurely subjected to penance of pain
bring it on
make my day
set me free
take me home

 

 

From my book Pieces of Wine

Chasing History

“Playing Cards in Fryeburg Maine” by Eastman Johnson

 

Sensing mild adventure
My spring forest beckons
Boughs like green-handed arms
Overhead sweep me in
Crackling twigs underfoot
Start critters to scurrying
Darting through shimmering
Figments of latticework
Sun-woven shadows
Cast down upon air fairly
Pungent with pine-scent
And redolent bark

All the while looking
For traces of passage
Among mossy trunks
Around angular boulders
Half or more never seen
Dry icebergs that jut up
From brown-needled beds
Sprouting tussocks of turf
Alert for the odd bit
With color or form
Suggestive of artifact
Waylaid by history

Bull moose and whitetail
Track snowmelt-charged streams
Coursing rocky treed foothills
Where smugglers annulled
Prohibition by hauling
With oxen-drawn sledge
Furtive freightloads of spirits
Canadian contraband
Routes marked by ruins
Crude stopover shacks
Rotten planks overgrown
With woodland encroachment

Local lore hints one such
Way-station stood up
Right here on my land
Though no one knows where
My crown-antler Bowie
Hacks passable trails
Through vines thick as thumbs
Sturdy saplings like pickets
Slow progress until one good
Yank frees a fanned clump of
Maidenhair ferns whose roots
Tangle with rust-crusted chain

My ironwood staff
Pokes and prods fertile earth
Tracing widening arcs
That stop at a massive
Rock shelf cantilevered
Across the slope face
Sharply steepened above
A good twenty feet long
The ledge caps a space
Dense with thickets of
Buckthorn and bittersweet
Grappling to fill every inch

I poke horizontally
Jabbing lush verdure
And jump from a thrill
When I hear report back
Telltale thumps of some
Hollow-backed wood
Well concealed from the eye
Tamping down my excitement
I vow to return armed with
Counterblade loppers and
One-eighty lanterns
Once autumn drops leaves

In hobbling back down
All my pain burns more viciously
Scorching what courage
I might draw from rousing
Inspiriting echoes
An eager mind sounds
But these thought-killing fires
Make me frequently lay-by
Without peace to wonder
How many more seasons
Will give me adventure
And finish my history

 

 

A fictional reverie from my books Range of Motion, 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

Pain of Glass

“Embodiment” – Glass Sculpture by Eric Franklin

 

morbid bones
dressed with
ossified cartilage
work to create
crystal skeletons
ringing with
durable pain
sharp tortures
of tuning forks
resonant screams
piercing torsos of
tendons and tissue
unbearable noise
filled with agony
no one can hear
save the microbes
those tiny mad
toxiform agents
who hum their
malevolent chorus
to alchemic sounds
of a deep dense
infection that
transforms the
once supple
structures of bone
into hard rigid
girders of glass

 

From my book Ephemera