the colorful healer stood out in the plant convention
most of us were dressed in dour, drab, earthy clays or browns
the healers from the forests were dressed in a variety of greens.
the colorful healer could be easily spotted wherever she went
she shone like a beacon out of the meadows of greens that day
most of us had never thought to dress like this
we are garden people, tree people, bush and vine people.
She taught us a lot, living her own truth. We were amazed.
Those we love don't go away.
They walk beside us every day.
Their footfalls forge the path we tread,
Driving us onward, not back instead.
Our evolving selves, deep in our core,
Shape the masks for those we adore,
To nurture our loving relationships,
Using meticulously written scripts,
Penned for each person, in a candle flame,
In forms distinct, yet never the same.
The roles we play, the stance we take,
Shape the versions of us they make.
Their words become our guiding tune,
The moment we step in their room.
Each role we play, in joy or strife,
Hums the echoes we learned in life.
Sculpting our souls in pliant clays.
The one true self within, never strays.
Never clings, never yens, asks for more,
From love that lives on, for evermore.
Here we are, our falsehoods are now through,
Did you claim your share from life’s clear view?
Erasing one name from this fragile world,
A name that history forever unfurled.
We left the village just the other day,
Yet for its warmth, we always long and pray.
Enjoying life in our own fleeting ways,
We’re all just bellies hauling earth’s clays.
In youth, we burned as flames in the night,
We bowed to no one, fought with all our might.
Self-centered, stubborn, and deaf to advice,
We plunged into troubles more than twice.
Now, youth and pride have both faded away,
Tamed, we follow life’s humbler way.
Like a flickering lamp that’s lost its glow,
Our fame has dimmed, nowhere left to go.
Faulkner's letter to
Hemingway discovered God
in time ~ ere souls wrote
formed their clays ~ victories and
defeats ~ fought they their reproof
now loves and pities
proud catch lost at sea old man
lands the best that seldom's me
I need not travel far
to sense God’s nearness --
the trill of His many
lyrical voices – Surely
the oriole knows same
intimacy; as does every
petal on the thrilling
rose, dripping luscious color
with scent – Clays-of-clouds
inspiring mental needing –
the toes of an infant, twitching
destiny to explore, long before
bottoms callus, and his legs
steadying for firm excursion --
Today, I think, I will be a child
again – in my mind and heart
reacquaint myself with
good witches in fairy-tales,
and with angels and prayer – …. Treating phones
and Internet like 14th century plague….
Looking out from deep inside
this fortress here wherein I hide.
Formed brick by brick in rounds of pain,
some circumstantial, others made
by hand selecting from the first -
fine crafted moldings of the worst.
With clays of pity, doubt and fear,
mix in the water, make it clear
so all around will go away.
Form isolation day by day
til self-inflicted world of one
is all that’s left, the fortress done.
Now every brick formed tells a tale
of how I crafted out this hell,
where trapped inside I live alone…
my self-inflicted one-man home.
Forever friends we are and will always be said the white rat.
This was news to the faerie, but he was nicer than her old cat.
I can get you kibble, lettuce, bits of bacon, or other treats she said.
Just a bit of peanut butter please, the white rat quickly said.
But do not put in in one of those snappy things, please.
And I might ask your for a tiny bit of limburger cheese.
He was an easy pet, and fun in a variety of ways.
She taught him to boogie, and he taught her glaze clays.
Triggers are red,
barrels are blue.
Smith and Wesson
I love you!
Targets are set,
guns are sighted.
In my hand,
I get excited!
Bore snakes out
Hoppe’s too
be good to them
they’ll be good to you!
NB: I have a great photo of my grandson's team with their SCTP Nationals Trap Shooting trophies, but PS will not allow me to upload it. Your loss. LOL. There are no shotguns in the picture, but a depiction of one on the trophies. (I can upload any other picture from my library or off the Web, unless it shows guns or shooting - how very liberal. Pity, it is a great sport, as are other types of shooting competitions.)
The Lake Side Church
David J Walker
The Lake Side Church reminds me
That Jesus walked on water
Jesus fed fish to the
Uncounted multitudes
Jesus calling out to Peter
and his brothers
to abandon their boats and nets
and follow Him
The Lake Side Church reminds me
God separated the
Waters from the dry lands
in the same way
He parted ways
with the lights of the
nights and days
And created the
Woman from the man
In the dry dust on hand
made in various colors of clays
The Lake Side Church reminds me
That Noah build an Ark on dry land
And no person would understand
The parade of animals who did
The Lake Side Church held
Saturday picnics on
Namesake shores
People dressed in white
In boats without oars
Begging to be baptized
Before the Rapture that
Could come any day
My glaring eyes sneak a look at
The clear spring waters
In the water jug (karuwa) –
The pure appearance of my face
Reflected like in the mirror
Strike against the inner surfaces
Split into bits and pieces
With dispersal of rainbow, refracts
The reality in my known face –
Shattered lives of my whole life.
Those bits and pieces of my living
Soldered together in rhymes
Frozen my poems into iceberg
Stand up firmly like snowy peak
Clear and transparent in its life
The clichéd words melt into water
Flow in currents of the river and
Rest in the bed of the ocean.
The straight waterways from
The top of mountain to the ocean bed
Condensed from the veins of the nature
Passes through stones pebbles, sands and clays
Pours to the brim in water jug
The pure spring water
From the mouth of the water jug
Like the cool waterfall falls to
My thirsting throat.
*
Detroit gave me birth
like the snapping of
sheet metal, and her streets
still bleed.
But Missouri taught me
to see.
The Germans came
Grooming the valleys
with white frame houses
gripping the hills
with scoured brick towns,
the cisterns and weathervanes.
Now is the time of the Maifest, *
the hopes for a new plowed soil.
The men become stern strutters
in overalls.
And the rivers fill the women
with reveries.
Now I know
with my feet,
the waters,
the rocks, and the clays.
I am gifted with the brown rings
of trees.
Published Black Buzzard Press 1982.
*The Maifest (or Mayfest in English) was celebrated by German immigrants in Missouri. Their descendants continue the tradition to the present day. It is the traditional German celebration of the arrival of spring and is now celebrated around the world.
that bleeding Lamb
His bleeding wounds
non to tend
Wounds that heal
every broken heart
That eternal plaster
of Paris 1Peter 2:24
Sent His Son
A bleeding Reed
Bled for all yet
The greatest donor
Forsaken breath
Choked with air
That we may breath
Air to life
In His name
A rocky canopy
With rocky roof
no wind can distress
So all can shelter
In storms of life
Jesus Christ you died
Die to live
immortal death
A life so precious
a second breath
Is born again
Book of books
Book to shelves
Book to libraries
He ends the begins
Alphas the Omega
Roses the Sharon
To scent the earth
Lilies the valleys
To beautiful me
He made the sea
piece of bread,
A rod to slice
we walked upon
Eagles mount soar
the blasts
His nostrils
Fires the sun
to warm our day
And snows the moon
He lips the seas
to water greens
A bleeding love
That paid my price
How great the Potter
His clays he tender
3/5/2020
On the shoulders of avid days
I stride on its lips with a pot made of clays
Inquest of fecund fields to preen what pays
Both the days we suture its coral rays
And days its name wears mystery
I schooled forth lapping the mile’s misery:
Worries a spoon, jester a stew, despair a rice dished miserly
Murdered hopes, spices; yet I slide, no furry.
At time when exiled felicity
Staked in self stalk new sari
Leaning against the old plea.
And lethal tears oozing breathlessly frosting his solitary balcony.
A wolf bane singing the songs of angel
Orchestrated alchemical lyrics, in it fell
O! Withers of pain, lend me your domain, let me dwell
O! I said, are you not wolf bane, won’t there be tale
O! I’m, recharge your crockeries of trust in my smell
A wolf’s bane she was indeed
Listening to her lusty lyrics in refined
Harem’s tone, then I pigeonholed.
As the suns fell on the shrubs, as dews condescended
As the soil becomes wealthily fending
A moon in me suffers seizure and my dog died frothing
Then I was awakened to knowing anon
That there are good flowers and there are poisonous one
Molten gold glistening among the priceless, fathomless dragon lair
Born of crystallized dragon riders, Ariennada knew to love them and to care
They nurtured her in their olden ancient ways
She who had birthed herself, in their cave of clays
She reached an age where the secrets in her heart
Born of her parents’, handed down from Knight of Marth,
Made mystical magical sense, and showed her the path
She raised her own dragon, and he taught her his wrath
Ariennada, a prophetess, born from Queen Elise’s womb,
Stone-cold in her determination to dispel all gloom
Led the dragons to a place, far away from battles they did not like
She was their princess, their queen, a full-grown dragon faerie delight
One dragon, Old Manster was in love with her, but he kept it quiet
For the others were too, and there would have been a riot.
Molten gold glistening among the priceless, fathomless dragon lair
Born of crystallized dragon riders, Ariennada knew to love them, and to care.
It was the time,
When there was no sign of dawn and dusk
Hot summers and chilled winters gave us new tasks
Heavy storms and rains brought us holidays
In return, we gifted boats of papers and clays
It was the time,
When days were spent in chanting numbers and rhyme
And face was covered with candy grime
We never knew why the orange fireball chased us
But longed to dine with the moon on a cloud bus.
It was the time,
When cycle rides were roller coasters
And one candy could buy a million kisses
Wet summer mud was yummier than cadburies
And our cute talks were considered as juicy as strawberries
Babyhood is so precious and angelic
Don't kill it with a sickle and brick
It's the Spring time in every Jack's life
Let kids dance and jump to the waves of Fife.
Preserve every moment of Childhood
Keep the memories alive in every bark and wood.
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