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

Tenterhooks

 

Painting by Sir Anthony Hopkins

 

stretched between maybes

tremble tissues of batwings

extended suspended from

overhead recesses dark and

theatrically cavernous damp

taut and fraught with the

flopsweat of uncertain endings

anxiety shudders with cold

possibilities membranes

divide when from then hanging

curtains of skin in proscenium

attitude blinding the actor

to obvious outcomes no sense

of the audience all of his choices

of speech caught on tenterhooks

black iron forgings catch drop

of the drapes veined in turn

with their coursings of pulsing

soliloquy colloquy obloquy

no loss for words among thespian

creatures the trick is to draw

down the right form of rhetoric

this is no time for embarrassing

truths from some too-honest

leadership life and blood loyalties

hang in stark balance and

consequence augurs for quick

stepping out to the footlights

performing whatever deceits

keep concealed the real nature

of sharp-toothed insectivores

 

 

From my book Ephemera

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)

A Cynical View

“Deception” by Denise Sedor

 

too much trust in the eye

for an insincere world

all is not what it seems

in this prodigal plague

of mistaken identity

more than an unforced

unwitting illusion

reality hides inside

hoods of deception

four estates of the realm

each exhibit a rampant

political scorn with impunity

better to live in the mind

with ideas of democracy

notions of faith hope and truth

undisfigured by power

 

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

 

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”       – T. S. Eliot

Imagine

 

“Language of Stone” by M F Husain

 
imagine a million
angry hurt poets
avengers with brickbats
blunt weapons of words
raining down artful blows
upon philistine brows
raising consciousness
striking again and again
against biased indifference
to stanza and verse

patience fairly exhausted
with readers consumed
by that barbarous prose
overweening and rude
semi-literate wits
disinclined to appreciate
nights-on-end struggles
to pull from the muse
just a single apt phrase
in conveyance of mood

imagine a million
angry hurt poets
a virtual army
enlisted by passion
in liege to Apollo
their salvos of song
drowning dissonance
vanquishing language
complacent and lazily
scribbled by boors

would the world then
be better for metaphors
intercourse carried by
fluent rhetorical tropes
allegorical truth in the
place of the prosaic lie
while the poem is a challenge
the poet is honest
minds better informed
by the heart than the spleen

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

Crisis Management

“Raging River” by Becky Chappell

 

thoughts race in a crisis
mad rushing electrical river
hot whitewater rapids
ideas churn and tumble
words crash into stones
break apart in alternatives
urgent and desperate for
answers instructing the
right thing to do before
drowning in overthink

blest are adroit minds
informed by a personal
confident trust that no
tragedy looms who is
tragic enough to defeat
psychic fortitude only the
truth can react of an instant
and then from neat coils of
virtue can turn on a dime
nimbly spoiling all threats

 

 

From my book Ephemera

Glass Acuities

 

“Day of Glass” by Erich Heckel

 
sand and ash
plain ideas
made from
granular thought
come to bond
in the heat of
intelligent fire
transformed in
that singular
chalice of bone
conscious crucible
elements changed
intellectual alchemy
purges impurity
giving release from
the sins of obscurity
rendered transparent
no longer a solid
not yet quite a liquid
a slow-moving
pensive deliberate
shapelessness
seeking some nobly
provocative form
ineluctably cooled
into choices of
permanence
ethically clear
artful lenses or
vessels admitting
of light the full
spectrum of truth
able now to be
sharply discerned
and displayed
defined starkly and
wholly accessible
no more excuses or
errors of judgment
but truth must be
handled with care
revelation can startle
and clarity can blind
sand and ash
plain ideas
the mean friable
substance of
unrefined minds
though they undergo
wizardry burned
and then turned
into beautiful glass
brilliant specimens
smoothly well-reasoned
exquisite exhibits of
vitreous wisdom
are evermore fragile
yes those
even those
best and highest
expressions of
artisan minds
can be easily shattered
by the merest
oblivious flick from
a philistine boor

Perfect Pitch

“Hearing” by Jake Nordstrom

it’s all in the ear

the unconscious

eidetic discernment

of decency’s sounds

perfect packets

of audible memory

set-pieces pitched

as esthetic ideals

within deep

secret centers

electrically charged

limbic episodes

bearing distinctions

of pure synesthesia

a rarely placed gift

that must suffer

great pain to endure

through a lifetime

cacophonous discord

and dissonant speech

of unflinching

political hacks

who assault the

intelligent senses

of citizens

yearning for

elegant music of

justice and truth

fairly played in a

most human harmony

Uninformed

 

“Small Minds” by Hans Hofmann

 

 

truth bangs its head

on low ignorant

beams of mistrust

it simply can’t stand

in cramped space

of small minds

 

 

(originally posted November 2013)