Monday was for me a day when I felt blue.
Tuesday was not much better, I would say.
Wednesday meant work for the week was half through.
Thursday saw the weekend coming. Hip hip Hooray.
Friday was when I’d collect my pay.
Saturday more fun – if the cash was not all spent.
Sunday I would go to church and hopefully repent.
Walking down a lane, strewn with withered leaves,
I watch as they twirl and pirouette in Autumn's chill wind
leading them in a rhythmic dance that it skillfully weaves
as they plummet, leaving branches naked and chagrinned.
There's a true spark of vigor in the breeze of Autumn's call.
One I am quite happy to answer in poetic verses composed
about a family trip to the pumpkin patch, amid hues of Fall
when Nature's boldest color palette is so vibrantly exposed.
It's time for gathering together, and offer words of thanks
for the bountiful food and the beauty of a harvest moon,
and children Trick-or-Treating; scary Halloween pranks.
There's a crispness in the air and firewood to be hewn.
I get so excited when my favorite season approaches
and foliage gloriously blazes in shades of rust and gold.
Too quickly the coldest season of the year encroaches.
I'm not enamored by Winter when shivering with cold.
From this lane, I watch geese flying to a warmer clime,
their vee formation clear to see as to the South they go.
But before Winter takes command there's enough time
to enjoy these golden days of Fall, before the first snow.
My heart waits again,
Hands sweating with familiarity,
When peace is present... What's next?
Wondering and knowing of readiness,
Shifts knocking on the door,
Will I hold my own hand... Be my own friend?
Of course I'm capable,
Bending realities at will,
Will I finally fathom it never ends?
Wondering if I'll embrace it,
Catching myself before I leave my lane,
Will I again be shocked by coming pain?
Hoping I will balance it now,
The mind and the fire inside,
I'll speak to myself in a week, again.
A quiet period,
Noticing myself again,
A new is coming.
Another cycle completed,
Doors closed quietly,
Monsters left behind.
Hands slipping silently,
Goodbyes necessary,
A young bird again gains flight.
A small clearing,
Understanding my fractals,
Which part of me is next?
A quiet period,
Challenges festering...
A badge of honour on my chest.
(Inspired by the painting La Victoire by René Magritte)
A giant door has opened
upon a yellow shore
No rooms contain it
This huge high door
stands with blue water
on its opposite side
Between the blue
of firmament and sea
is a grayish background
A cloud has settled
at the top
left portion
of the peculiar door
Strangely, the cloud
is suspended
mid-air
inside the open space
that faces away from
the water
I stand before the door
pondering its purpose there . . .
I ponder MY purpose there
If I should pass through it,
will I find myself
walking toward water -
to immerse myself
in the cool of its blue?
Then it dawns on me
What if I can somehow
reach the cloud suspended
in the open doorway?
What if I could
grab hold of that
nearly unreachable cloud?
Envisioning this -
I become one with the cloud,
and I’m d r i f t i n g
inside
my own
imagination
The parakeet stands at the microphone,
white and yellow feathers lit
as though morning itself
has perched beside him.
He leans forward slightly,
a small body holding
a large intention.
He has not made a sound.
Yet the room feels tuned~
a pause rising like a curtain,
waiting for whatever note
he is gathering in his chest.
Even the air seems to pause,
as if anticipation were
a kind of music,
a bright, trembling thread
drawn taut between
what is and what might be.
He lifts one foot,
then the other,
a tiny choreography
of readiness.
The microphone gleams,
patient, expectant,
as though it knows
the first note
will change the day.
And when he finally opens his beak,
the world draws closer~
not for the song itself,
but for the miracle
of the moment
just before it.
Common sense, once common indeed,
Now seems a forgotten human need.
We hurry through life with reckless force,
Placing the cart before the horse.
We seek the harvest before the seed,
Demanding success without the deed.
Racing ahead without thought or care,
Then wondering why progress isn't there.
Education fills the mind with facts,
Yet often neglects life's deeper acts.
Not teaching how to reason and think,
But leaving many on worry's brink.
For wisdom grows when minds reflect,
When consequences earn respect.
Every choice we make today
Shapes the paths we walk someday.
A thoughtful person understands
That truth is not held in one pair of hands.
Each circumstance has another side,
A lesson often pushed aside.
To move ahead, we first must see
What is, what was, and what can be.
For genuine progress, clear and true,
Begins with understanding what we do.
So let wisdom lead and haste take pause,
Let reason guide through life's great cause.
For the surest way to move ahead
Is to think before the path is tread.
—On the Sight That Waited for You—
Did I love then? My sight had learn’d to lie,
and clothed each apparition in borrowed light;
I kiss’d the dawn and watch’d the western sky,
and deem’d the numinous in mortal sight.
I call’d the rain’s pale argent fall divine,
made vanishing a sacrament of flame;
and made each fugitive splendour a shrine,
and gave the passing world an endless name.
Till thou didst enter—and the very air
seem’d suddenly vacat’d of what it feign’d;
the rain still silver’d every waiting stair,
yet through each interstice the dark remain’d.
I kiss’d thy hand—and all my heavens knew
their light had only been rehearsing you.
Before I start this poem, I seek
To acknowledge that I sit on the land of the Wequaeesgeek
And that my laptop, at which I peer through thick glasses
drowns islands in the Pacific with greenhouse gases.
I know life has always given me the edge
Due to my Jewish Ashkenazi privilege.
And being male I'm in the patriarchy
At the top of the oppressive hierarchy.
I apologize for my pronoun being 'he'
At least it could have been 'they' or 'we'.
I apologize that all these apologies are fake
And for the real apologies that I didn't make.
Now back to my poem, it occurred at night
I can't let that idea fade, take flight
I didn't have a pen; I should have written it quick
I've lost the thread and now I feel sick.
What remains depends
on what you expected there
before looking down—
the eye searches for a world
it already thought was lost.
What remains can be
what you most desire to find
among all that's gone—
hope gathers the scattered tithes
making presence out of loss.
What remains may be
only what you feared to see,
waiting in the mind—
we recount the world that's left
or the world we feared we'd find.
Before we can see,
expectation shapes the eye—
hope and fear look first
then eyes open wonder-wide—
discovering - what remains.
A goodbye happened before hello,
in some twisted loves, you just know.
I knew it was over before it even began,
suffocated by the calloused hands of a man.
I only saw your eyes in passing,
only one glimpse, and I knew they were worth having.
A goodbye was the very start,
the kind that ruins you in its poetic art.
I didn’t need to know your story.
I watched, noted the places you like to hang out,
you in all your glory.
I stalked for months, had all kinds of fun.
It’s a pity you didn’t when I told you to run.
I liked your bubbly charisma.
I played into it with charm.
You didn’t know all I wanted was to cause you harm.
I tricked you, said I knew your friend,
but when the lights went out, limp and alone,
you knew by the end.
I’m a psycho, a natural-born killer.
I’ve added you to my collection,
in which I’ve labelled thriller.
I said goodbye before hello.
You were pretty, a blonde,
and you didn’t even know.
Before the black hole,
There is nothing.
Even if you wish to die, you cannot die.
Even if you wish to live, you cannot live.
We do not know.
Open your eyes.
Close your eyes.
As the Bible breathes its breath
Upon your lips, your nose, your eyes, and your heart,
In this moment, there is no good and evil.
In this moment, there is no man and woman.
The very first cry of genesis:
~Waa-waa~
The swirling sound of the first black hole.
A tiny seed falls upon some planet.
Friction, the laws of action and reaction.
Something is created.
We are
"That which is invisible,
Before the crying of birth!"
You are reading my words.
"This is the beginning of all things in the universe."
How?
You ask me.
What you are asking
Is not asking me,
You are asking yourself.
"Has not the Bible already answered you?"
Take my guts and peel my skin off
look me straight in the eye
no answer just silence
questions of freedom just gone.
Is this my father or a man in the mask,
force that I've never felt before,
now i know how far my body can fly,
across that hallway, till i hit the floor.
Darkness in the eyes of love,
looking straight at me as i get up,
"Go ahead and use it father"
" Feed that anger because tomorrow
you might not wake up"!
But before you swing that heavy arm,
just listen to my silence,
your kingdom screams, my heaven suffers,
you never told me if you loved me.
Without a question or hesitation,
decisions in my mind,
how could i think this way,
eat my breakfast now with my bloody lip,
these thoughts are your fault
i need you around, your death on my mind.
One day you will hit the ground,
chills down my spine,
hello freedom, now you are mine.
—A Sonnet—
I wore my life as exiles wear the sea:
Too vast to cross, too faithless to forsake.
Each dawn broke bread with every man but me;
I ate the light and still refused to wake.
Then thou didst look—not lovingly, but true—
As though my soul had never once been lost;
The silence I had hidden life within
Stepped forth and counted neither fear nor cost.
Thou knew'st the man my mother could not name,
The face my mirrors practised, yet denied.
One touch from thee recalled me into flame;
The years stood still until I stepped inside.
Love was not born when first I came to thee.
Thou camest where eternity called me.
I sat under a tree somewhere in Nebraska
after a late-night drive in a storm to here
my assignment. Nestled in the sandhills
the morning whispered. In silence I stayed
by a lake where a drive ended. The sun
reflected off a pond, my reflections
to begin the day. Trees and grasses sprouted
from sand fed by underground streams.
A soft breeze whispered, too. I closed
my eyes. Serenity. Pioneers had given their lives
to discover this land. It was mine for now.
I discovered the land for myself. A white cabin
near me was quiet, whether abandoned or not
it didn’t matter. I embraced the silence. Lost
in time. I felt in my mind a new poem form
the words I longed to share when I’d get
back home. Lines broke and found new lines.
Stanzas white spaces moments of silence
always said more than I could say as I gazed
at clouds drifting through open skies. A poem
or two I could take home with me on the long drive.
I had to admit I never knew what I would find.
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