Lonesome

“Old Tin Cup” by Kevin Rogers

 

homely vessel
this antique tin cup
battered dented
black bottomed
from too many
campfires burning
on too many trails
rinsed too often
in sulfurous pools

muddied coffee
or watery whiskey
chased choke dust
from leather lipped
mouth-breathing
maw given over
to sighs for that
long ago time
when the ride
was less lonely

when saddlebags
bulged with sweet
purpose and travel
was mounted for
real destinations
not merely to
wander in aimless
perpetual motion

 

 

From my book Ephemera

Old Key

Image from pinterest.com

brass stranger come lost
from a far ago place
somehow making its way
through descendants
of warm-blooded
fingers and palms
across thresholds
past sundowns
to find itself here
in this alien present
beyond reach of memory
sensing it still must contain
in the forge of its shape
some significant secret
a secret whose purpose
has taken on tarnished
patina of mystery
leaving to wonder if ever
its life was important
or merely just useful

Skin

 

“Between Existences” by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox

 

 

mindless droning
repetitive tasks
keep us busy
without being busy
enough conscious
to sleep open-eyed
on the ragged thin
edge of existence
where love and hate
cut themselves
just to remind us
how good they
could feel if
we just put some
skin in the game

 

(originally posted January 2014)

Blood Sweat and Tears

“Entry to Your Dream” by Mirek Bialy

(originally posted June 2013)

 

blood sweat and tears
are within me
unsweet ingredients
resolving my essence
but they’re not fully mine
till I give them away
expend vital fluids
decant my poor vessel
on behalf of another
some one or some thing
set deeper with purpose
who filled by my gifts
allows my becoming
partner to providence
and in the becoming
I reach a more perfect
expression of me

Fame

“Pebbles” by MV Ellison

plain pebble that never stands out

content to be left in the background

unnoticed imperfect yet pleased

to accept the warm love of the sun

unwilling to waste useless energy

trying to shine when a dull gray

humility serves to support the

conviction to stand in place

shoulder to shoulder among

fellow stones holding ground against

weathering wind and the walkabouts

escorting ruinous passage of time

a noble existence of steadfastness

more to the purpose of igneous life

than to haughtily sit celebration as

prizes in pockets of rockhounds

en route to a fated display on soft beds

of sateen in antique glazed vitrines

fame is fickle and fleeting a thing to be

chased by those lacking of confidence

scrabbling for worth in untrustworthy

whims of a changeable external world

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

“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.” – Horace Greeley

Ravens and Robins

 

“Birds of a Feather” by Candace French

 

 

the blacks and the reds
coexist in high greenery
flying these deep forest spaces
swift power and grace
in their unerring motion
creating an airborne ballet
of affinitive natural society

big and brash small and sweet
living life with deliberate joy
going on with their business
in view of my fortunate windows
unaware of my yearning
to join them and feel I have
purpose and wings of my own

 

 

From my book Onionskin

Horizon’s Voice

“Blue Horizon”
Painting by Karon Melillo DeVega
From fineartamerica.com

I am horizon
celestial seam
where convene
men and angels
in purpose
more noble
than flesh
more human
than holy

I am horizon
a meeting place
realms of creation
convergent
enabling exchange
of learned wisdom
in mutual aid
of abiding
respect

I am horizon
edged joinery
piecing the land
sea and sky
treelines drawn
from the hemlines
of heaven the end
and beginning
of everything

Pianoforte

“Keys #2”
Painting by Debra Hurd
From fineartamerica.com

every road
a keyboard
every step
giving either
a sweet note
or sour note
tandem tones
ringing a range
of experience
melodies
ears might
obtain and
minds might
remember
in the end
every man
woman child
walks their
music
a journey
a song that
sings distance
achieved in
harmonic
progressions
with interposed
backslide
reversals the
counterpoint
constant
the threat
ever present
for failure
sounds much
like success
composition
is often
impulsive
a resonant
accident
played by
two feet
with no sense
of direction
enthralled
in the moment
delighted by
merely their
chance to
make noise

Seed

“Seed”
Painting by Jeanie Tomanek
From lavendercreekglass.wordpress.com

what profits the seed
who compulses
convulses
with urge to release
its pale essence
to shoot forth its
tender and tentative embryo
into the warm wormy soil
defying suggestions
of gravity reaches itself
up and up
breaking surface
to find greening rays of the sun
rays that carry tomorrows
from heaven to earth

what profits the seed
is fulfilment
the sense of met purpose
one focus
one moment
one job to be done
continuity realized
with deft execution
the broken shell
remnants of seedcoat
now satisfied
knowing it gave of its life
to the larger imperative
moving the spark of existence
from then to again

Stanchions

“Kansas Country Fence Post with Grass”
Photo by Robert D. Brozek
From fineartamerica.com

hewn granite splinters
cold cuboid shafts
plunged deep into
border soils down
below reach by the
fingers of freeze
a bucolic perimetry
surveyed in rods limns
the pale of grassed
livestock estates hems
the outskirts of visual
fields forlorn artifacts
wounded and bleeding
with rust of garroted
hard century cinches of
barbed iron wire when
taut in their turnings
were coaxing devices
that stretched rural air
post to post plumbed
and sturdy resisting
the impulse to wander
now lonely the era of
husbandry gone with
colonial ghosts these
stone purposeless pickets
lean bleak among weeds
left to wonder if life
will recall them to arms