I no longer use my head, and have a lengthening face.
I barely belong to the human race.
I don't think it's normal or a matter of course,
that in the fullness of time, I should become a horse.
Yet, if it's come to this, on this strange day,
don't sit there. Saddle me up and feed me hay.
It felt like Autumn
on this morning’s run
I want it to be fall
with its syllabus of vibes
I’m signaling a stance
I’m autumn’s undoubted champion
wearing my choice like gangland colours
- I could give my all to fall -
summer only ever had my subdivided attention
Summer’s just too needy: it demands relaxation,
bare legs, sun block, beach plans, hydration,
barbecue, and relentless fun, with scant variations
I want the visual promise of leaves falling
the flattering autumnal colour palette
my whole devotion crowns shortening days
fall always serves as a competent stylist
complete with venti pumpkin lattes
and mornings with a costume of frost
Unbind the theatrical heats of midsummer nights
and let the season's advance revive us
show us falls slanting golden afternoon light
let crisper darknesses harbour counterfeit witches
and lengthening dusks warrant winter wishes
Let fall assume her russet throne
and give us autumn’s cool agenda
without the influenza
.
.
Songs for this:
Ping Pong by Dimie Cat
Messy by Lola Young
childhood bicycles in summer~
coasting along the street,
heat shimmering above the handlebars
as if the air itself were remembering;
we rode through afternoons
that opened like bright pages,
our shadows lengthening beside us
in quiet companionship,
and every turn of the wheel
felt like a small permission
to believe the world was wide,
wonderful, and waiting.
A single white rose
remains in her garden
as if guarding her last breath
and the laugh that lightened
a garden into a legendary
sanctuary of sacred place,
lengthening time
and creating memories
of precious moments
that passing time cannot erase~
still marked to remind
by a single white rose.
A silent grace sits on the silvered hair,
Lengthening the seasons to drawn out days,
Not only breath glitters in life’s deep stare,
But also treading through the world’s cold maze.
The tender spring blooms will soon surely fade,
And summer heat will in a while cool down,
But wisdom mustered in the serene shade
Will proliferate the world`s knowledge crown.
True longevity resides not in breath,
But in wise words that we share as a sage,
An age-long heritage that defeats death,
A shining spirit stretching beyond age.
Years are but the reflection of our pace,
While legacy lasts across time and space.
Strange oddities, hoodoos
they stand, stoic and timeless
stranded in red rock country
their solemn, stony faces
staring intently towards the
southwestern horizon.
I pause…
and witness their mighty stance
resolute and silent
an ancient tribal assembly
gathered and grounded
like mighty warriors of old.
Now, feeling claustrophobic
the hoodoos surround me
a stone henge courtroom
judge and jury
granite gravels at the ready
to strike judgment.
My path darkens with the fading light
I “will” my feet to carry me away
to escape the impending doom
it wants to chase me down
inside the lengthening shadows.
Hidden by nightfall
I distance myself from
the curse of the hoodoos
and their rock hard grip
and hope for a hoodoo redo
come the morning light.
??Here's a piece I wrote about my favorite old holiday!
???Imbolc???
On February first
I step through the back door
into the breath of winter
and tie my favorite scarf
around the old oak
keeper of memory
witness to return
I leave it there
as an offering
My spirit is bright and light
gratitude falling behind me
like sun-glint
on snow and ice
I go back inside
to hearth and rhythm
evening
routine
baby
family
full
The magic is not waiting
It is already here
flickering in the in-between
in moments that pass too quickly
to name
At dawn
I return for the scarf
Hope shines in my eyes
The old ways murmur
the ewes are stirring
the dark is loosening its grip
Brigid walks the land again
laying her fire
beneath the frost
Hold fast
The light is lengthening
Rest, rest, rest
while the ground still sleeps
Blessed be this turning of the year
may fire and water
heart and hearth
guide me gently
into the rising light
prosaic
reality
lengthening
fading
the sensory
alluring
musing
bewildering
in
lucidity
adopts
a
radiated
aura
a paradox
close
&intimate
yet
inexpressible
profound
shadowy
&persuasive
sublime
inert
passive
This here is the thing. It is indicated
By a signal coming from a source,
Questioned by a desire for validity,
Soaking in a pool of vapour.
Language gives a structure
To imaginary fabrication
Whose existence is assumed
Quite without substantiation
Concrete metaphors convince
Whomsoever desires conviction;
These are entities vibrating
Autogenic deification.
Vine leaves winding round the clock hands
Are interpretations of time’s change
Like the lengthening shadows
Engaging the heat of the day
But once the night stars
Withdraw their spark into themselves
It is all over
Bar the wailing.
In the twilight hour waning outside
in the melted hues of the eventide horizon,
the sky shimmered with its last glow
at the edge of the indigo night.
Its cascading cadence caressed your face
with the turquoise touch of splendor
I engraved on the parchment of my heart
as the longing shadow of togetherness.
I haven’t counted the steps we sauntered
on the sands spread on the shore of time,
but our footprints got facsimiled in my mind,
yours beside mine, etched side by side, all the way,
where we’re now at the fringe
of the lingering shadow of eternity.
As the mist of obscurity drifts away
the streams of amorous sunshine surge
with the mesmeric momentum of fervor
through my window open to the sky,
and drape your eyes with the veil of trance,
where I find in the azure firmament
the lengthening shadow of cloud
shape the silhouette of my yearning.
Through the quietude of the sunset,
my aloneness walks the penultimate mile
in the desolate terrain where you see me configured
as the long shadow of silence,
the epitome of what I am
and the mystery of what I would be.
The world is tilting;
I see it leaning into black baseness
as long shadows slink like eerie entities
lengthening out – ever lengthening,
obscuring truth and sensibility.
These shadows dim the human mind
until over time, I am left wondering:
what has become of man-kind?
Virtue’s light I recall once brighter
is being shrouded now more and more
with so much stealthiness
that few, I fear, are barely conscious
of the deep malevolence
lurking and growing into night.
Can you see it closing in on us?
Long shadows are becoming
the umbra which will be
our pall.
HERMIT’S FIRE IN THE FROZEN MEDIEVAL FOREST
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The wind, a teeth-chattering dirge
through skeletal branches,
finds no purchase on the small flame.
He built it low, a secret
whispered to the snow-laden earth,
a defiant ember in the kingdom of ice.
Years bleed into seasons here,
marked only by the shrinking woodpile,
the lengthening beard, the deepening lines
etched by firelight and solitude.
He remembers faces,
ghosts flickering in the flames,
loves lost, battles fought,
a life traded for this quiet burn.
The forest breathes around him,
a vast, indifferent lung.
He is a mote, a spark,
yet the fire persists,
a stubborn refusal to surrender
to the long, cold night.
And perhaps, he thinks,
as the embers glow,
that is enough.
Just to burn.
Just to be.
SILENT WITNESS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the sun, a molten coin, descends,
and he, a shadow lengthening,
holds his breath.
he feels the earth turn,
a slow, relentless dance,
and wonders of his place within the spin.
the sky bleeds crimson, then bruised purple,
and he, suspended between light and dark,
is neither here nor there,
but simply is,
a silent witness
to the fading day.
“If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”
~Oscar Wilde
the sky smiles as it watches us
dance in the light of a silver moon
on the veranda of an infinite cosmos~
the only way to make a star
dance in the light of a silver moon,
to music of the spheres as it falls
into a symphony of our poem
on the veranda of an infinite cosmos
where time is the choreographer
of tangos and tragedies~
the only only way to make a star
is with each spark of love we fling
into night's lengthening shadow.
There is a need for quietness today,
I listen to my neighbor's toilet flush,
it takes a long time for the sound
to drain away and refill,
I hold seconds inside my mind
between that rise and fall.
There is space for listening,
the trash compactor chews on
when switched off.
I hear conversations
filtering through the air conditioner,
words both distinct and garbled.
Yesterdays hurried meal
speaks still, moments explore
newly opened pocket.
This is not silence
sound moves upon carpet slippers,
yet steps are heightened
by being audible
in a lower registry of depth.
It is I who creates this lengthening,
this processional unwinding of
of unremarkable moments,
a distance between
and marked by blank labels -
every note,
an eavesdropping deliverance.
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