In the space
Between their words
They stand
Wondering
How they arrived
At this hollow space
Where neither
Can see the other
Where friendship
Rimed with hoar
No longer warms
Both captive
To their own
Righteousness
k
Posts Tagged ‘modern poetry’
Bound
Posted in Creativity, tagged friendship, modern poetry, poetry, righteous on 13 May 2021| Leave a Comment »
Scattered
Posted in Creativity, Writing, tagged grief, haiku, modern poetry, mortality, mourning, poetry, scattered ashes on 30 Apr 2021| 1 Comment »
Arrows
Posted in Creativity, Writing, tagged modern poetry, mortality, perspective, poetry on 22 Apr 2021| 2 Comments »
I step into the drear of night
bundled by the here
enclosed in the present tense
until the clouds part
and I can see
past the isolate stars
and stately galactic swirls
all the way
to the birth of time.
Aeons
stretching away, upward, outward,
radiant lines speeding
from my microscopic self
my ephemeral now
to the vastness of
the eternal long ago.
Unless I turn around,
reverse the lance of time,
and those lines
no longer spread
but converge
and I become
the arrow
the universe at my back
heading into the future.
k
A Study of Tears
Posted in Creativity, Writing, tagged COVID, emotions, finding joy, isolation, joy, modern poetry, pandemic, poetry, tears, tragedy on 08 Apr 2021| Leave a Comment »
I’ve studied tears this twelvemonth past.
Presented with such concentrated array,
comparison is a natural response.
Grief, I found, comes on in briny waves, salting recent wounds,
while tragedy burns with toxic bile.
Isolation, wrapped in bitter, aching skin,
tastes bitter, foul, and acrid on the tongue,
while pain, all physical yet all intangible,
hones its razor’s edge, making torment manifold.
But by none of this was I surprised.
Until
one day, not too long past,
when life’s encroaching blackness
pressed me to my osseous redoubt.
Seeking solace, I there discovered
a sound imbued of perfect beauty
and I was lifted, lightened,
transported beyond the encampment of my misery
to a place I’d left too long unvisited.
And in that place I learned
the tears of joy do not sting.
k
I See Hope
Posted in Writing, tagged #amwriting, modern poetry, poetry, short fiction, vignettes, Writing on 11 Mar 2021| 3 Comments »
Fingers deep in waking earth
clearing ferns from wintry somnolence
Their feathered, spiked, serrate fronds
release spores in ochre clouds
Raindrops drum my hat brim
enthusiastic paradiddles of spring
Hands set blade to swordleaf
trimming old stems and rusted detritus
From the center I lift accreted duff
revealing curls, verdant and sleepy
Nestled in that fiddlehead crown
is the confidence of rebirth
Hope is spring’s eternal gift
a promise of life
and all it contains
Tesserae
Posted in Creativity, Writing, tagged memory, metaphor, modern poetry, poetry on 25 Feb 2021| 2 Comments »
I am built of tiny things
bits of stone and glass and wood and bone
each one a moment
I am drunk
and high
and sober as clear water
I broil my skin red in the Judean desert
as my toes freeze blue in the Sierra snow
I kiss Ellen under Corinthian sequoias
and Luann in the spray of Pacific surf
I walk barefoot across summer hills
through grass as tawny as a lion
I feel the thrum of my tires
as I cycle along fog-shrouded curves
In Paris I am lost in place and language
In London I give directions to tourists
I play Berlioz in a stone cathedral
I paint a sunset at a winery
I cook a meal that isn’t very good
I grieve a brother lost
I smile and hold my wife’s hand
These are tesserae of my life
not frozen in time but freed of it
not layers of the past but cut from a shattered present
I lay each one down
be it clumsily or with care
to form my greater whole
You see the mosaic
I am the mosaic
unfinished
incomplete
in progress
Moment by moment
bit by bit
I am built of tiny things
Cicada Song
Posted in Creativity, Writing, tagged COVID, creative writing, hope, isolation, modern poetry, poetry on 04 Feb 2021| 2 Comments »
You are tired
Your heart
wrung out
lies limp
spent
exhausted
Your mind
fuzzed by events
shackled by twin weights
of isolation
of jailed desires
is rendered senseless
numb
The parade of days
a monotony
of toil
of grief
of sameness
The calendar
arbitrary divisor of time
paints illusions
of separation
of change
where none truly exist
New year!
Flip the page!
It’s supposed to be different!
Yet, it isn’t
It’s the same
But step back
Look beyond
your home
your street
your life
The world spins quickly
and is slow to move
but like a tide in flood
inexorable
imperceptible
it does change
Is changing
And soon
like cicadas
after years-long entombment
we will emerge
to breathe the windborne breeze
to see the rising sun
to sing in our multitudes
of love
of life
of our many futures
Our hearts will be renewed
our minds refreshed
our lives rejoined
Be patient
Be calm
Be hopeful
Practice your song
k
Books you Need to Read
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Recent Activity
That’s What I’m Talkin’ About
Unraveling Time
Desert Wind
Ploughman's Son
Ploughman King
The Year the Cloud Fell
The Spirit of Thunder
Shadow of the Storm
The Cry of the Wind
Beneath a Wounded Sky
Cryptogenesis: A Memoir
