Dark is the night
with shadows and bleached bones
of leafless trees
Limbs frozen in time
A sculpted beauty
shroud below her thighs
Dark is the night
and so many trees
buried near the corpse flowers
Has he ever watched them bloom
or were his eyes transfixed on the shovel
Dark is the night
yet the moon shows its phases
always a sentinel of fate
never able to help the inculpable
as the black clouds devour
Dark is the night
As a bird I am,
blessed with these wings
that have caressed the
winds of wisdom, and
flown me to places far,
and shown me
the ends of the Universe -
a bird indeed, yet one
entombed in a
miserable cage, even as
the whiff of free air
outside my inculpable prison
does fill my nostrils
through the holes in this
rotten mesh.
If those gates are shut
so be they, for they may
keep me from those worlds
which I've cavorted in,
but my eyes, kissed
by a thousand suns do see
beauty even in that which
deprives life of beauty,
and this voice, once subdued
shall speak again, crafting
another world in this
lonely abode.
At first, I wasn't sure it was Spring until I felt a warm breeze, ever so gently, blow across my skin and heard the trickling sound of running water, fleeing Winter's icy grip. And I caught a whiff of Spring's unique perfume, lingering on a fresh, fragrant breeze—a rich, earthy aroma befitting Nature's favorite daughter. And dipping Her brush into a rainbow palette, Spring dappled color onto Winter's canvas of white, while unfurling trillions of leaves to green the tops of the trees. She is the Goddess for whom the birds sing, an artist extraordinaire, and the giver of life. I welcome Spring with open arms, enchanted by Her inculpable beauty, genteel grace, and friendly, flirtatious southern-belle charm.
melting into spring
icicles shrink drop by drop...
winter bleeds water
To touch I can only love not compromise
Such beauty demands utmost respect
Perfectly inculpable like particles of light
They cannot hesitate only move
Swiftly, gracefully, untremulous as destiny
Yet bending, change to vibrant hues
Are we not all particles?
Tiny flits of grandeur in a cosmic scheme
But be she particle or incandescent soul
There is no light like her, this I know.
Rain's Innocent Guilt
by Odin Roark
So simple
Creation's reflective miniscule
Gathering force at will
Sprinkling nourishment
Sharing its cleansing
Wanting only growth
Such is the mission
Of Nature's most immaculate
The raindrop
Carrier of so many purposes
Inculpable its essence
Being not of calamitous desire
Yet collected by forces undesired
Often Tropical disturbance
Or typhoons
Hurricanes
So faultless
Its guilt
While we admonish it presence
Water spotting our car washes
Spoiling our vacation weekends
Plummeting our gardens
We ignore its due respect
Perhaps...
Embracing the small creature-less life
Might enable this E. T. of Nature's family
Dreaming only of making our lives better
A supportive existence among
Its dedicated landscape
Still
We argue its overwhelming presence
Even as its ancestors of Arctic and Antarctic
Plead for genealogical respect
We continue to deny its nemesis
Man's natural self destruction
Trying to hide behind inept rationale
For some
So easy to deny
For all
Impossible to avoid
Society's numb tongue
Underwent, undergone
The riptide pulls my feet
By hypnosis and brackish replete
Our politics paraded in the streets
We were there to please
Grounded still at the round table
Forging letters for keepsake
So families could be kept tight
Although at nude beaches, anarchists ran
Poised and laughing at the dull face
Of a monarchy solemnly rejoiced
The sand and sun were for everyone
American boys on the skull trapping frontier
Tapped the essence of mainline
Those wild, wooly inculpable fears
They rigged the order of moss and deer
So be it, we are ancient and modern
Atlantis, her watery sun beckons too
Casting mystery upon the waves
Soon to be searching our hidden Titanic
While unearthing Catholic graves
an invalid
an invital
cast a clearing on
could not only part a sea,
but more likely the trees
big bad mountain splitter
clear a path for me please
hid away in slums of heaven
formed a gang of impressionable heads
fools didn't know that they were dead
but cried to the pain of phantom wings
sunset diver
karmic debt collect
hunting me down for
great crimes than might exist punishments for
though no one ever said
that gods weren't creative
an invalid
an inculpable
voodoo dolls
voodoo dolls
with voodoo minds
and time after time
are oh so willing
to prick themselves with any old needle and pin
drawing in...
Where is it that
the rivers all flow
and pool
with inculpable
eloquence?
Tell me where
the rain falls
and
washes
the guilt
sodden avenues
of my existence
clean.
Where are the
magnificent
mountains
that tower above
the pain
and
sickness
that have
cast shadows
over my
years?
There is a place
where the flowers
bloom with
such
radiance
and grandeur
from the soil
enriched
with
my laments.
I stand on
this ledge
waiting
for the
wind
to take me
there,
when I may
free myself
from hell
and unburden
the world of my
encumbering
shell.
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