Snow stays in the sky
while the mountain peaks seem to fall
as first light denudes them.
Crystal clear in the mirror of itself
the lake shines under a surface of silence.
I know if I take a picture of what I see now
the mountains will not be falling,
I will not see the snow in the sky
nor the mirror in the lake
so I just sit awhile on a wet stump
and bleed a little wonder into the world.
If I still smoked
the smoky fumes would be perfect
to look through.
A cold hard rain soaks the tree
denudes its flailing branches
stamps a season's exclamation point
on the edge of approaching frost.
Leafs flutter - stringless kites adrift
floating on a mindless wind
whistling through shivering steeples
mocking the silence of dormant church bells.
Wet feathered sparrows taunt the wind
cling to the hope of trembling limbs
gentle strength against the fury
acquiescence without surrender.
Darkness falls on a raging gale
shrieking in its emptiness
seeking an unknown destination.
A cold hard rain soaks the tree.
John G. Lawless
11/30/2020
Coldness
I
these winter nights undertake my body
usurps my reserved warmth with a strangle hold
scraping my nape with night fissures
of black bleeding
my body shrieks to the jerking marrow
and denudes the caverns through my nose
as my breath is a frozen gust along
the obsidian sky
fingertips paralyzed -curled to the clutch
of my palms that can't defrost
the serrated shards of the night solidify
as my body convulses and crystalize
the coldness' thickens
as the pace of the air pervades
until all of me
- sent like ashes
from glaciers burned
- begin to evaporate ..
..........
II
as i ascend
- there is a silence
a linear silence
that tauts the horizon
and there is abscence
-the abscence of the light
...........comfort about the infinite dark
with the pulsating breathing
of the shimmering stars
and the clarity of the large sky
i oscillate around your satellite
forever like a mortal coil
It is still the same
subtle and fresh.
Your voice deep
like a grave dark wood,
invades my antiquity.
The chasm within
transports my existence ;
denudes me
and it cast a pall on my sanity.
Disheveled
Grotesque
My own reflection
deceives me.
So lonely
and desperate.
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