I hit the spot.
I marked it with a dot.
It's my spot—
An 'X' ringed.
A bullseye claimed,
filled with jet black ink—
Not a blot with rough edges that seep out,
but one with a sharp outer perimeter.
It's a point pretending it has a yard of space around it,
on its own plot of land, casting no shadows.
I shift a bit; neighbors start crowding in.
"Stop Right There!"
"It's my spot you're on!"
I feel the canvas moving under my spot,
or is it all the jostling moving me — page, plot and all?
Now I'm bouncing in a crowded jumping castle.
Dots blurring into one another.
Stippled footprints mark where spots once stood;
touching down elsewhere — here, there, otherwise.
I've lost the plot; I've lost my spot.
Just another orphaned dot,
set adrift, looking for a margin to belong in.
on a slate, forever being wiped clean.
I clamp down and dig in my heels.
Crampons bite into the ice floe.
Punctuation halts the slide,
puts its foot down—
my comma sheds its tail, and holds.
A memory seared into my mind with the rose red tint of desire,
The hazy flush of too much, too soon.
I crawl into the car after you
our figures crowding the tenebrous space
My drunken gaze stumbles upon
your hair
short brown strands my fingers itch to explore
My eyes drift to your face
and a flush brightens my cheeks
Beautiful and stagnant
Infinite and untouchable
The curve of your nose
The secrets held in your smile lines
Shadows dance to grace
your delicate features
I, too, would die
to trace the lengths of your lips
Dizzy with lust and unspoken words
i lay my head on your shoulder
Heat burns where our skin touches
scorching and dangerous
You place a hand on my leg
impartial to the cross delicate on my collarbones
and my skin sears and blackens
even eight months later I still see the outline
of a winter intertwined
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bluebonnets spill across the Texas highways~
it's as if the earth has flung open
a thousand secret doors
and let the sky fall through.
They gather in unruly congregations
crowding ditches,
leaning into the wind,
lifting their blue-lit faces
toward every passing traveler.
March moves through them
like a quiet blessing,
coaxing color from the soil
until the land becomes a hymn
unrhymed, unrestrained,
a wild devotion of blue.
Ashes all around, raining down
Drowning the misery with more
The floating specks of grey
That were once a rosy pink
Filled with fragrance and life
The flowers paved the way ahead
New love blossoming under the trees
First kisses behind the school buildings
Birds pecking at the ample rice grains
And a happy, happy place.
Nothing much has changed since
Only the air thick with morbid death
The boundless bed of ashes giving way
To nameless faces half buried in eternal sleep
Thorns drawing blood with every step
Unmarked tombs crowding weeping trees
Dried tears on the unturned pages
Vultures scavenging for fleshes of suffering
But the throne got an heir at long last
So a happy, happy place it is still.
The ads and displays are everywhere
crowding entries and doorways.
There are even commercials on monitors—
I can’t escape.
I rush in for a few items and conversation
but choices offered seem bigger than life.
Signs that say save and save
implore that you spend more.
I pass by an aisle of more types
of bread than I could imagine
leading to a myriad of types
of peanut butter.
I must confess I couldn’t find
the peanut butter with jelly
that delighted my tongue
when I worked long, hot days
with construction crews
some other time and place.
Every small town I passed
nestled along narrow highways
had a name on a water tower
as it pierced the sky.
I long to go to a quiet place
and list my memories
a collage of the life
I’ve known.
Upon a peculiar summer night,
When the moon’s freckled grin
Yet possessed a wrinkle,
I wandered forthwith, into the solitude
Brushing upon the forest’s edge.
Through strangled brush and crowing groves;
Upon twisted soil and mossen branches,
My aching feet beckoned inward,
Until nature’s course revealed to me
Your river – pierced upon reflection
Of the moon’s sparkled tears.
Her sorrowful eyes as I wept
Burnt my heart in narrow affliction;
Though fellow men had possessed her,
None had addressed her somber glow
Upon the writhing hemlocks.
Rather, they loved her from afar
In hollow stone castles
Hung above the whistling leaves,
Crowding the black horizon
In shadows tapering their shade.
O’ Reverie, said I upon her,
Has my love no home in this garden?
Lo!
Lo, behold my love!
Of my sparkling reflection,
Sing to me in silence my love!
Where the moonlit howls
Upon this stream form me,
Be there,
Be there my love.
You never knew you were an ocean,
and because you never knew,
the richness of your humid breeze transformed
our dour familiar shore
into ebony ripples of panthers with hot orchid breath
and thousand-colored trills of frantic plumage
in an emerald vigor of spirits who stalk through the sun’s dream
to render their hearts in proud sacrifice to nameless rivers.
But I knew you,
and knowing you I could not face you,
because I knew that if our eyes met
the vengeful angels would come crowding back,
and I knew that if I spoke your name
our shabby corridors would crack into veins of agony,
and I knew that if I touched you
I would be dying naked and alone in the desert without god.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
purple thistle grows like a giraffe
dandelion not as tall, by half
weeds will grow eight foot in one night
easily crowding out a garden’s light
(In Rome, a small plaque on a wall shows
how high the river rose in 1872.)
It says a lot, this little marble line.
The river (Rome’s life-giver), prone to flood,
could raise, erase: the rhythm of Proserpine,
of summer, winter, it’s the beat of blood.
What are we, then, we humans? So much krill,
to flourish and then wither? Nothing more?
Accretions crowding every Quirinal Hill,
but rinsed away like Ephesus, Elsinore?
A tremor pulverised the gems of Giotto.
We labour, learn and languish – then we’re dead.
Achievement? Summed up by the Ponte Rotto.
Try grasping, with your educated head
(encapsulated in this modest motto)
that rivers rise and fall. What’s then been said?
God whispered and I heard his voice calling to love him more
Promising to make time after completing all my chores
Intending to obey life pulling with violent roar
Losing slowly unaware of falling in this soul war
God whispered and I thought I heard his voice calling to me
Planning family work and life as time happens to flee
Vowing to fit God in when things slow down and I am free
Sliding away as for my soul God continues to plea
God whispered and I faintly felt like I had heard a sound
Racing faster and gaining less and less on life’s playground
Achieving hollow victories as starts another round
Feeling only broken and beaten and completely bound
God whispered and sadly I didn’t even notice at all
Working so hard to build life only to have missed it all
Crowding time with worldly things and goals had been the downfall
Crying from an empty soul finally to God I call
Mount Fuji, waking,
Lifting on girdling pink cloud
In early dawning,
Casts its slopes and snowcapped peak
On flat mirroring water.
-------------------------------------
Fuji; slow sunrise.
Then a sea of blazing cloud
Sets the hills aflame!
Crowding onto a shoreline:-
Hosts of purple lavender.
-------------------------------------
Fuji in Moonshine;
Floating cranberries, amassed,
Shiver in cold light.
Ruby redness contrasting
Against crystaline night sky.
Sparrows enjoy a certain reputation
For intimacy and hope
Crosby Stills and Nash sang of them
In Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
As compatriots to the morning
Air
With guitar strums and high notes
Truth be told
Sparrows are bulkier than the normal song bird
And not particularly
Pretty
Brown and gray as a mound of dirt
Chirpy jerky punk band
And they have no problem with crowding out
From a bush or bird feeder
Finches and chick-a-dees
They’re kind of a bully
Push around those that are smaller
Who carry pouches of yellow and pink
And tiny symphonies
They clog up my eavestroughs with nests
Right now
I watch one sparrow land on top of another
And the tree branch bends down
Under their heft
Bounces up and down
To their sex
Again
The limb
Seemingly
Waving them off
Or so it tries
As if it’s saying
Get off me you animals.
Wilted flowers
Wilted flowers lie in empty fields
Days pass as flies scour,
Leaving the decomposing ideas to be eaten.
The sun flickers as each minute weans by
An empty shell of you left in bloody waters.
A quiet silence crowding the space your words claimed.
The once blooming pedals, scorned by your nectar.
Craving the burn you bring into my veins; no longer able to be muzzled
A type of silent desire for chaos and destruction.
A desire for deforestation.
What started as weeds being plucked,
Turned to mowing down rose bushes.
Muddy boots left on waxed floors,
Destruction on the original wood grain that was once admired by generations.
Floors handcrafted from trees outside of what I wanted to call home.
Someplace silence was peace and peace was expected rather than craved.
Pruned roses left puddles of milkweed
Each droplet going sour the second it fell,
The bitter taste of cyanide leaked out of your pores into its water supply.
Empty plots. Pesticides. Ripped roots.
just give me paints and some brushes, the little girl said.
She had drops and drips all over her face and her head.
Her overalls were saturated with paints in reds and blue.
What else could we do? Asked her mother, what else could we do?
She painted her way through college, covering canvases galore.
Sixteen hundred paintings, and maybe two hundred more.
The paintings were crowding her parents who had no more room.
Can we sell them? Asked her mother, who was on Zoom.
No, the girl said, just burn them, I can make new ones every day.
But her parents could not do this, so they threw furniture away.
They got rid of their couches, chairs, and tables to make room.
“What happened to your house?” asked their daughter on Zoom.
Walking,
Strolling through,
Rolling hills,
Cliffs Keep Arising.
Diving in,
Climbing In the end,
To be better than my will.
A higher mentality,
Hiding in side of me.
So I can see the Truth,
Surrounding Duality.
Abiding within society,
Driving the Crazy,
Becoming Lazy,
The path Growing hazy.
Complacency has blatantly,
Robbed us of Energy.
The will to be,
As we Endlessly,
Repeat our history.
Can you See?
The Patterns,
Fallacies,
Created,
Keeping us Happy,
Entertained,
And Distracted.
Our youth being trained,
Framed forms,
Flowing to a Norm,
Attracted like a swarm,
To all the Usual STUFF.
Things cluttering The Place,
Crowding Personal space.
Erasing the Connection,
To Your Grace and Affection.
The Role you play,
When they have your attention.
Chasing away all who seek change,
So things remain the same,
To repeat this Game.
Let's Redirect our intellect,
And walk into change.
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