A backwash of death and body's decay,
The soul—once dwelt within me—is no more.
In life-death script's passably long play,
I could not—I don't know why—reach the shore.
I lie naked now with many others,
Forgetting caste, colour, creed, polity;
Confronting all weather with no druthers,
Pushed towards a preset equality.
Isn't there, in my core, an inner strength?
There's a truth of perseverance of life;
There is, in me, an endless breadth and length
Of forgone pains of existential strife.
Am I the monarch of this breathless deep,
Or just a puppet death has put to sleep?
Gurgling stream invisible,
drawn to its blithe bosom,
by edge of dawn kismet,
whose loiter and lurk in,
my peep of day ear satin,
taunts drowsy pallette vein,
with velvet sonic swerves,
unique, unseen, unfolding,
conjures a deep sensory,
whiff of innuendo imaged,
blurred eye phase paused,
red sun sears sleep crust,
salt gust imp tickles twitchy,
nose, my loyal guide dog,
whilst morning slumber,
thaws in trancelike mien,
to shed blind spot tramp,
a faint backwash swoosh,
now flags receding eddy,
near rapids hazy vision,
one can intuit in a blink,
but not quite glimpse!
the skiff chugs along
toward the end of the lake
where the tall peaks rise
snowcapped mountains ripple
across a backwash
an eagle
glides in a blue distance
a red and yellow float
mirrors itself
below the surface
one silvery fish slipping
under
a deeply swimming sun
no way to catch that
optimistic gremmie hits the beach with her new board
eager to take on magnificent crests, showing off her stuff
her knowledge minimal, but her courage impressive
an aggro gives her a few tips, then goes along his way
aggro gets caught in the backwash, and rides the aerial
gremmie watches, enthralled, entranced, amazed.
she bails a few times, wondering if she will live or die.
She’s got it, he thinks happily, the heart of a surfer.
in the backwash of my mind
memories still legible
sunken crystalized in sands
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The Chucko Children
roller derby brains passing into the steel mainspring
if we eat these slivers of veal paradox and watercress
the chucko children will slip beyond the sly pastures
they will forever traverse the bone rub badlands
the golden hard-on matinees, the grinding piano teeth
tearing it up, absorbing the pretenses, the stoney soufflés
the moulin rouge’ side glances dripping from the stars
now it’s clinging to your skin like jellyfish regurgitations
the simplex television people rattle chains during halftime
roller derby brains passing through the perforations
the backwash inseminations from a thousand lost nights
the dusty facades of made-up motel girls smoking fear sticks
hey you, yeah you, i got ten bucks in my pocket all for you
maybe you and me can test the winds and apply the dance
we can slip beyond the sly pastures, the stoney soufflés
the war still rages, even as the comatose night sleeps on
We can hear the chucko children tearing it up grinding it out,
bringing it on, again and again inside the steel mainspring
Get right with the creator...
Teach your kids how to fish.
Give EVERYBODY a second chance or even a third.
(That's if they're not too vicious).
After that, you're wasting your-breath- my dirty dime.
Do hire more GOOD police; they're quite necessary.
To keep the hell hounds off the streets.
Thin out the Neapolitan herd of:
STRAWBERRY KNEED race-baiting politicians.
BLACK-HEARTED MEDIA HEADS.
Billowing out the pale sludge of lies and half-truths.
Thin out the GREEN-EYED OLIGARCHS.
Greasing the souls and crotches of politicians.
Do promote peace within your family.
Don't paint people in your backwash of hate...
The community will bud-cities will bloom...again.
Tend to your teeth -a smile will naturally follow.
A smile can make all the difference.
....and did I mention, get right with God.
We'll all be better off...somewhat.
Ezekiel’s Witness
David J Walker
It was the Spring before Eddie died that Fall
The graveled back road leading to the
end of the airport runway and an audible adventure
In the perfect evening air
no wind
as the light defused
into the equinox sky
we parked his Buick on the leeward side of
the barbed wire fence just beyond the runway
and stood in the chilled and perfectly stilled night air
Where
we became four animated fixtures
beckoning to the coming Continental Airliner
watching it grow nearer
bigger
louder
roaring
rattling our bones in the backwash of
a passenger jet landing on time in
the middle of nowhere
Ezekiel bore witness to the wheel in the wheel
Way up in the middle of the sky
Ezekiel bore witness in the valley of bones
Dry but not lifeless
Eddie left a note naming the boys who would
Bear the pall of his casket
It was the fall of our senior year
People have been saying it's the end times for a millennium.
Christ tends to percolate to the surface of the mind.
During turbulent and bloody times.
There have always been wars, plagues, and bad men.
People have suffered and grieved and moved along.
Plowing through the bones of the saints and the damned.
Enduring the indifference and savagery of kings.
They've waded through the backwash of time.
To see yet another and another sunrise.
Christ is not coming any time soon.
Just be nice to one another
Kick back, have a cup of Java, enjoy the sunshine.
The cadent curls recede upon the shore,
with fizzle sounds like brushes on a drum,
their once brave tune declined forevermore,
beneath the growing shades of a beach plum.
The shadow fingers stretch along the beach,
to close the eyelids of a sleepy sun,
on the horizon nodding her last speech,
her closing song, as her best time is done.
Yet, she leaves fervent images behind,
reprints of joyous moments on the sand,
or backwash from tides pounding so unkind,
a montage of love sketches super grand.
Before the final twilight curtain’s drawn,
seek to bask in the wonders of each dawn.
a thunderstorm passing over -
gun turrets flash
gray hulls rumble and roll
above tumultuous clouds
evening commences to weep -
a damp emotive capsizing
that barely touches upturned faces
as seafaring battles go
it was a sky-skirmish
of near misses
a backwash of electric fizz
the distant sound
of sailors shouting for rum
light blinks
shipping damp echoes
that drip
into a salty bucket
of silence
Swollen ocular objects of sensitivity
Stared back in the rear view mirror
Tear glazed cheeks of sadness
Raised hand the last goodbye
And I forsook love again
A singular journey of thought
The paved road ahead a blur
But albeit a welcome retreat
From emotional backwash
Senseless beguiling stupidity
If but love we’re not so cruel.
she made a desperate leap but once more missed the boat
had to absolve her failure by swimming in ablution creek
the water was murky and viscous but therefore she floated
the sheen on her skin blessed her strokes in polluted disguise
distant proximity posed a new challenge as she sifted the debris
of her sad heart punctured by thrash of emotions and feelings
as astern backwash propelled her journey back to its start
when she bobbed up and down to the bottom of her resolve
she felt the stagnant drift of many years by the ocean shore
where she had been unable to set neither sail nor cast an anchor
restless and yes apathetic she had watched her rusty engine
to stay close to the harbour of uncertainty and bracken water
like a bubble from sunken Atlantis buried deep in her soul
the missed ferry sank because of too many passengers aboard
who attempted to catch the same wavelength of rapid departure
and she threw them a lifeline for she knew about safe passage
dolphins jumped up and down to the applause of the lighthouse
keeper whose beard was so long as to serve as yarn for the rescue
sometimes missed opportunities deliver grace in selfless struggle
The sky turned from dewy drab to gunmetal.
Pewter raindrops slipped down the window like mercury.
I went out onto the covered deck to smoke a cigar and sky gaze.
Iron winged grey geese had shed their metallic plumage,
ferrous sheets of sleet crashed into a low leaden haze.
Easy to imagine infinitesimal steel dioramas turning
within each particle of soaking spindrift.
I thought of space junk, not ours, but an alien detritus
drifting in from a thousand galaxies,
hundreds of space craft abandoned and defunct
all slipping, unmoored into fragments
falling and smelted small within times rendering forge.
Evidence of dead-end hopes and far explorations.
I watch this riven wreckage rolling in
apprehend through clouds of cigar smoke
its last landfall on our far flung world
as a dissolved ore in a backwash of rain.
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