Nighting

A thing moving sight unseen
I almost died or so it seemed
Power had I without measure
Yet could not find my golden treasure.

But the treasure I sought to find
Were the chains that did bind
Me to a path not from above
And caused me to lose my greatest love.

1986

the Choice

The day ends: light fading like forgotten promises
formed of fog and breath, steam slips away, words on the wind.
Am i too full of pride to walk with God
or too full of fear to walk without Him?

12.22.10

Winter Worn

bare branches long and thin framed against a slate sky:
still life splintered into clouds of gray and white,
broken and beautiful...like Christmas lights on an empty house...
winter interrupted.

12.21.10

Engines of Entropy

Machines make it all so easy
like a walk in the park
until our laces and bindings and soles come apart.
Once we reach the top, we know what we'll find--
because we keep finding it again and again...
and you were walking with me once, let us go together
again...let me see your hair move gentle in the wind:
blend with me
bend with me
break with me...follow Deschain
down the long dry dusty plain
There's just too much light...it's everywhere.
The yellow sun looks almost white at noon
as it casts unshadows thick in the dirty air.
The end of ten thousand years comes all too soon.

The wheel keeps turning and turning and turning and turning
like gears in the machine grinding fine the good intentions
of the well-meaning...slaving away and paving the high road to hell.
An eloquent entropy is this creation: full of harmony and history,
armies and hysteria, excess and elation.

I want to ask her if she did it out of pity
but on second thought i realize that i don't really care why.
Black smoke rises thick around me like a sweater
and i long to breath the free air, no matter how cold:
                     unbound, unfound, and unfettered.
The smoke clings to me choking me stinging my eyes
making me feel something not quite like myself
          like something old.

23 Dec 2010

Waved

Not far beyond the breaks lies a cold, wet hell,
Not far beyond the crest, not far beyond the swell
Of a heaving torrent that roils, rises, then eats itself,
Of a heavenly stew of bodies broken like promises on a crisp coral shelf.

2010

The Rusted Coil

a shudder runs through hunched shoulders
while the weather winds blow uncommonly colder
finding them while they sleep, finding them where they sup;
winter is hesitant, inttermittent, hidden and spent,
yet reluctant to give you up.

the late winter sky is black and blue and fades slowly
like the sound of footsteps on the sidewalk behind you,
spring suns hide in shadows flung wide on the walls
of the brick building...and i am left with questions no less chilling:
Have i been found wanting...or just less than willing?

4.20.2010

Cold Shower

What happened to that love
i used to wear that fit me like a glove
and kept my hands bloodless and safe
from splinters showering down from up above
from the bitter bare brittle branches
reaching down from skies of gray and white?


12-22-10