My veins black as burned psalms,a river of rot running under my ribs.
Each heartbeat bleeds ink scripting serpents through scrolls of my skin.
Call me the chalice of corruption chaliced by curses,chaliced by craving.
My blood boils with broken commandments,whispering "drink me" to the dark.
Heaven turned it's hose of light on me once and the flame got darker.
My pulse pounds poison;it drums dirges for angels who drowned in desire.
The marrow in me mutinies,begging for the beauty of decay.
When I bleed earth drinks deeply and dreams in sickness and silk.
I baptize myself in my own bloodstream and scream Amen through the aneurysm.
My shadow sweats- blackwater veins bursting hymns of hell and hallelujah.
The Horse Nebula
rises from flames, forged
from Milky Way core.
Saturn flanks his right,
Jupiter his left --
Gods girded for war.
Lightning bolts whistle
above the red glare
for all to beware.
Dark stallion ascends,
riderless, regal,
through the rarified air.
Photo taken by the author at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, July 29, 2019, showing Saturn, Jupiter, the Milky Way core, and Southern Delta Aquarid meteors.
Blackwater tide
no longer functional
blemishes of toxins
Frankenfish contamination
environmental risk, insomnia spurs.
In and out thoughts
Mind-worry cycle of self rule
in free flowing confetti that won't anchor
No streaks of mindful grace
Never one with the stilled darkness
Only splintered images of disappointments
stacked like packing crates.
Unable to count sheep
(too distracted by their calm cud chewing).
Prayer for the dispatch of quiet's mind
To barter all for a drug to quell wakefulness
Relief from restlessness in mind numbing news
over making wrong choices
my fall through the sky.
Powerless to erase a brain script of failure,
to know a measured response to love.
Smack the pillows again
A beating in progress
None the softer
for brain waves
on cushions of letdown
soiled by secrets.
Poem revised January 21, 2021
Blackwater Falls
Such a beautiful creation
For all to see
The cascading majestic sounds
Setting your mind free.
Natures sounds vary
From small trickling falls
To large thunderous pounding
Oh, the different nature calls
Niagara is impressive
But not for me.
Blackwater Falls is the best
Yes, a Mountaineer I will always be.
Copyright © Robert Moore, February 8, 2020
I am a vision of Cody
Immortal now at five dollars
First beers in Lowell
actually on Jack Kerouac
Flutes Sirens and choppers
A blended symphony
A cacophony in warm morning sun
Words in Stone
Along the canal
Blackwater yellow leaf
Laying low on celluloid
Bluefish plastic bag diving deep
Into library basement
Pied Piper Amram invites me
To breathe life into myself
And my words as my journey continues
Across this rock called earth
The Asperger syndrome : you will not speak,
you will not tell me about
fertilizer bomb. In a farmhouse blackwater
becomes a death chamber.
A toddler falls in a borewell,
you can still measure hypothermia,
the tilting of meteor saves the landfall,
stalking through the extended body.
What was the right thing in a chorus of protests
to underline the resilience of beaks and claws ?
It bugs the space and diameters of arguments
about the sweep of corruption in integrities.
It is very difficult to stay being whole amidst
the broken shards of bones. The dreams were
set in stones and water was rising.
Satish Verma
I watch the sun rise
over Blackwater Bay
blood red and promising heat
I'm not surprised
that I lost my way
and spent so much time on the street
In my defense
I've got nothing to say
as I watch the sunrise
on Blackwater Bay
I've got things to do
and places to go
I'm thinking of starting today
I never knew
there's so much I don't know
I can't let me stand in my way
too much time gone
and too little ahead
I battle the passage of time
The train that I'm on
won't stop for the dead
as she makes her way on down the line
Should the good Lord allow a few more years from now
I will be able to say
I've followed my heart and I've done my part
when I come home to Blackwater Bay
I've seen the sun rise
over Blackwater Bay
and I want to see it again
If I don't try
I might as well die
Than to go back to where I have been
I watch the sun rise
over Blackwater Bay
Blood red and promising heat
Lord give me strength
and show me the way
Help me to stand on my feet
Humbly I pray
that You won't let me stray
then guide me back home
To Blackwater Bay
from a friend in new orleans i hear
how filthy, dirty, diseased--
where life-giving water wages liquid war
on the lives it long supported--
life beneath blue roofs under grey skies
in black water--
the very air has revolted,
turned from salty sea breeze to
the breath of a briny dump-heap--
a city built on water, by water
bled wet until its brittle bones gave way--
leaving only the grim report sent up
the mississippi
to the tune of a tired old zydeco song
last remnant of the past city--
from a french quarter gift shop
Blackwater baby born on a boat
put down the anchor and now you wont float
blackwater child with mud in your toes
wade thru the shallows where nobody knows
who is your mother,your father,your friend?
blackwater child when your sweet childhood ends
dont put your boots on,dont part your hair
dont go to town,you have relatives there
they'll scrub you and kiss you and put you
to bed,you'll awake with a job and a pain
in your head. Go down to the meadow,Go down to
the glen,go deep in the forest it's filled
with your friends,the birds and three bears
and the fairies who fly,with a whoop and
a yelp and no good reason why
just run from the fetters of civilization
fade out in the glow of your lost generation
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