I am tired of prayer portals,
gateways unlocked by trance,
the meditative magic carpet rides
to promised realms, the rituals -
it has always
been here in the soft whisperings
of evenings, writing its narrative
in everything -
the tall eucalypts
of the high country, the coastal
she oaks and grasses buffeted
by the wind, rivers and pebbled
streams, mountains, the wide
plains - and murmurs
in the soul stuff
and in every atom of me.
Mostly I am deaf to its voice
and search for my own,
a plea, a prayer, anything at all
to send a ripple across
this dark, featureless terrain
that drops off at the cliff edge
of thought and stretches beyond
the full stop at the end
of my mind.
You’re a hollow tree, listening
to the tapping claws of the sky.
You sit sideways staring over your shoulder.
A rib cage full of shivering cavemen
looks up into your throat.
Wintery seas leak over ice-bound rooftops.
Bedsheets stiffen into ersatz snowdrifts.
You find yourself observing the world
through the top of your head.
You find yourself observing raw endings,
frozen filaments on buffeted window.
Roads might be passable. Wind-whales plow through,
pushing insomnia ahead of them.
The cold is a color yet to be decoded,
but you breathe through it, see through its fractured eyes.
You count crow-calls, go deaf when they stop.
The passage between you and the chill floor
is umbilical, you may have to bear down.
You skirt around your skin.
Scrape eyes with rigid lashes,
letting your mind thaw under parked cars.
Buffeted by Fire Darts, Matters Not
Feel the Righteous Fell Swoop Of God,
No Sword Unforged, All Souls Counted For
when All is Lost, All is Found, Alas Heavens Galore
Rollin Forth like Steel, In Zeal Esque like Coats Of Arms
In Shields, like Cavaliers, we Illumine like Stars
No Tip to Cold, Emblazoned by the Light
A Blade so Just, so to a T, So Bright
Ever - Ablaze
the Faith, it Shines like Solar Rays
Into the Nights like Knights of Ancient Days
with Courage, and Valor, and Ankhs and Sage
Upwards into the Golden Cathedral where Hosanna Dwells
through the Pillars of Jerusalem, past the Valleys of Hell
Upstanding by the Ideal, Israel Rises Above Vicissitudes
where Victory is Acquired, and the Sword turns Absolute
(10 September 2025)
Sail on, graceful clipper, past the clouds and
Into undimmed skies of eternity.
Lift up on silvered sails, mounting higher
Until the sweet Face of thy Savior see.
No more battered and buffeted by storms
And let joy and glory your gilding be.
Sail on, graceful clipper, into unguessed
Realms of Eternity and find thy port
In the calm waters of thy heav’nly home
Where thou wilt find safe anchor, forever.
It’s caught up, always, in those little things:
street corners, half-familiar: shop facades:
it’s not so much expansive boulevards
as rain-worn roofs which pluck the silvery strings
of sorrow. Part of my subconscious clings
to remnants – ruined fragments, broken sherds.
They say the brain’s an organ which discards,
not hoards. Why, then, these cruel rememberings?
A tranquil helmsman, plotting perfect vectors,
is how I see myself. Wretched delusion!
We’re buffeted by failure and exclusion,
divided into Hectors or defectors.
The only shred of dignity it brings
is when we learn to love our sunderings.
Killick
Sailing across the voyage of life
Amidst witty wilful waves of trials
Often subdued with wicked wily spells of pains
Buffeted below the belt by wild woeful winds
Faith ever serves me as my killick
Never lets my boat run astray
Day and night holds me to the shore
Averts my drifting against rocks of despair
Holds me firm during tempestuous gales
Secures me during winters of distress.
When darkness of night veils my life
When hands of fate deal me massive blows
When clouds of loneliness enrol me
When the low tide subdues my spirit,
The killick, as a guardian angel,
Softly whispers in my dainty ears
To gaze at the heavens with flame of faith high
Comforts me its vigil will outlast my breath
And it will keep me company till judgment day
When my soul reaches the celestial sky.
Written February 10, 2025
********************
Bereft of soft flesh,
That once throbbed within,
Tribute from heart
To departed soul.
Living together
For eighty years,
Snowflakes dissolve.
Sea silent,
Seagull speechless,
Seashells alone.
Roses and thorns,
Sand and beach,
Looks at palm.
Standing calm on salted sands beside
the tumult of tides,
Red remnants of care lie with hollow husks,
buffeted by breezes beneath darkened skies.
Blushed by sunset altar of love,
sea shell songs,
scent of Rosa rugosa,
stones smooth as lovers skin;
sweet love hearts oceanic sensual offerings.
October gallops in as stolid as a gray mare,
a blunt wind snorts furiously through autumnal trees.
Foliage rattles, but does not fall, it clings still
to green stems.
Appalachian backwoods have tough roots,
shod as they are into an earth salted
with a dark gritty ore.
Bears are foraging and reaping,
their black silky pelts clamber over gusting winds
to reach the furthest fruits
before first snows overburden stoic pines.
Today the sky is unharnessed
and racing at full tilt
It whips my raw lips like a wet mane,
it rears up to stamp down upon its own
animated onslaught.
I adjust my rucksack and reshoulder a shotgun
grin, eyes watering
caught under the stampeding gale,
buffeted now by its muscular flanks.
I need to bridle this striding wind,
to halter its headlong charge,
or better yet just surrender -
turn my back on it,
let it ride me
as we leap down from the hilltops
whooping it up like cowboys.
Like leaves we are, clinging on to dear life
In a world buffeted by winds and storms
Forever struggling to fit diff’rent norms
Even losing sometimes amidst the strife.
4th Place
The Life Acrostic Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Matt Caliri
This electric, magnetized,
body/mind equation of being,
is like a pilotless sailing ship,
that often runs upon the rocks,
to be beached
like any shipwreck
If the spirit of a lost love
should enter that broken vessel,
she will see two glasses,
set upon a tilting table,
while a wine bottle rolls
back and forth on a jumbled deck.
Though rough seas
and razor-teethed shores
have buffeted all else,
both bottle and glasses remain intact.
Consider them symbolic,
of a love Lorn alcoholic.
Stay awhile,
I will write you a love letter,
in a puddle of spilled wine
with my finger.
Yes, it will not last,
but nothing does my love.
Passion
Passion's born a wormy moon
Laying waste our good intent...
As desire brings forth a foolery
Where we rile in love's torment.
As novelty stokes our zeal
And the impetus seems well-meant...
It quickly dies a pauper's death
As familiarity breeds contempt.
If familiarity brings the winter...
Driving passion to its knees.
The fault is ours... and ours alone
As we forget what's soon to be.
Affairs of Men
The affairs of men dim evermore...
Morose they seem to be.
Buffeted by the winds of fate
And mediocrity.
I was walking through Woodruff Park
again today, although it felt a little
bit more like swimming; I had to backstroke
my way through viscous Summer air.
As I stopped to catch my breath
and towel off, I saw him.
Lying at the bottom of this swimming pool of a park
among the 2 o’clock trees and rugged,
rebellious weeds was a middle-aged man,
face creased and folded like fresh-pressed
dry cleaning before your first big interview
He was on his back, still as statuary,
in unlaced jet-black dress shoes,
polished so each one winked in the sunlight.
Arms buffeted at the elbows by quickly cuffed
sleeves as they lay heavy on the ground like unsuspecting
roadkill on that new on-ramp off of Boulevard.
The spotlight was on him: golden rays upon
fragile eyelids. Cruel beams focused like a bored
eight-year-old with a magnifying glass.
He looked dead.
Just when I began to dive back in and play
lifeguard, he pulled that naked forearm
up over his eyes and took a deep, wet breath.
Lowing fog horns
shake scales from rooftops.
We see the seawall drowning,
the surging waves rising
unfolding spume and brume
into mountains.
From the pub on the harbor front,
we can hear the buffeted gulls feeding
on the sluice of passing squalls.
"Look out the window" you say
(the window is a hundred pieces
of sky caught in a fish-eye).
"No boats will fish today," I whisper,
but we both know
that there are small boats out there,
they call out like cows, as wind- ghost
lead them through gray havens.
Out here in the outpost
I guard the borderland
“Over and out” – I lose the call
And you are out again
This is my shout out
From the hinterland
“Roger, Roger” at my post
But you are – out – again
You do not deem to call
While my receiver’s on
I fiddle with the dial
But – static – is the tongue
Cold the rime upon the pane
That crackles to the sound
Of Solitaire I muster out
– And the hand that I put down
Is a winner, at its best
– It seems the Ace is high –
– And here my friendly guest
Just winks an evil eye –
The creaking of my little hut
Is charged with energy
Buffeted by winds about
– thou art mine enemy! –
Cold the outer fathoms
And in the frozen stasis
White is in the noise
And silence in the spaces
The dark outside is deep
Did I just hear a knock?
– it’s just the knock, knock
Knocking of my beating heart
– Cornered as a winter mouse
Frightened from its nest
I startle to the voice I hear
And flee my inner guest
A south westerly buffeted the house
all night, howling at the windows,
trying to find something loose
to lift up and rip away.
Then the rain hardened to hail
bruising early summer growth
with icy shot.
I like laying in bed
listening to rain but this was
no soft patter, no gentle sedative
to send one to sleep.
This was rage, broken free
of limits. Senses tightened,
stretched across sleepless hours
waiting for the breach,
the moment when wind
would find the weakest point.
No mind was in this fury
but a pure play of power,
vectored here on some fall
of numbers hidden
in the howl. Unencumbered
by thought or feeling
there was a raw beauty
to its might.
By morning it was all blown out.
Children jumped puddles
of blue sky on their way
to school. Workers were busy
clearing away a tree
that had fallen on a house
killing a couple as they
laid listening or slept.
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