Regret is my hopeful desert
Blooming prickly sorrows
Larger than saguaros
What ifs as vultures fly
As virga clouds pass by
Watering lapis mirages
Flowing to retro success
In a palm-limned oasis
Of dream-filled love and embraces
‘Til what ifs disappear with dawn
In time to rouse and mow my lawn
Daffodil-daubed; Lilac-limned;
It blows, and nothing blurs for
The colouring matter.
Save but when each tear-streak through
We honour what's seen anew
Of God. That 'old master'.
purple lightning flash
phosphorescence limned oaks
awaiting thunder
M'aider … Mayday, comes from French,
that word, with fright, I radio,
my engine dead, this nighttime glide,
vast sky and ocean black as ink,
waves rising, lapping, leaping up
until the splash, wings ditching in,
a frantic swim, inflating raft,
my sea-soaked struggle to climb in
then drift and bob through endless dark,
despair and chill a numbing pair
while drooping, dozing, nodding off …
then through his succor of weak sleep,
the sea's east edge grew limned with white
and stars lost vigor in dull sky,
its gray, faint light caressing him;
he gasped and jolted, jumped awake,
aware hope rises with pale glow,
that pastel-pink renews all life
and rescue, soon, will be at hand!
Scars
Cartography of pain
An indelible portrait
Limned by the woes of yesterday
That made our hearts bleed
& feckly dead-end the flames of hope in us.
But they’re beautiful
Because they remind us of the heroes we are.
Some did escape the poems
to hold the book in hand
on soft, quiet, sunlit afternoons;
turn over crisp new pages
dip into the writer's mind.
They were the lucky ones.
Others, bound in verse
were oft limned dark, and cold,
as was the author's want.
Reflections of his damaged soul.
Cancerous capitalism,
predative patriarchalism,
insist on runaway win v lose competitions
against EarthMother's resilient health
and ecofeminist resonant wealth
To fearlessly look
into mirrored medicine cabinets
noticing untherapeutic time's inevitable one way
past tense to present dense direction
******** of lines written
and rewritten
into this moment
of reweaving wonder
How resiliently limned health
reflects nutritional resonance
unlike discontinuous dominant deviance
cognitive dissonance
waving toward affectively unrooted absence
of anticipated confluence
Like tolerating personal bumps
lumps
wrinkles
mountains and valleys
of emergent panentheistically grand minds
in aging pantheistic
ancient ecologically interdependent organic bodies
Imagining climate pathological end
of healthy living green/blue Earth
predicted in commencement of cancerous capitalism
written in lines of greedy eyes
and needy ears
for anthropocentric
monoculturing opportunity,
predative win v lose rabidity.
There were skies onyx at night... moons by day...
lakes pale as her eyes... breathless winds
undressing tall elms; ... she would say
that we loved, but some book said we'd sinned.
Soon impatiens too fiery to stay
sagged; the crocus bells drooped, golden-limned;
things of brightness, rinsed out, ran to gray...
all the light of that world softly dimmed.
Where our feet were inclined, we would stray;
there were paths where dead weeds stood untrimmed,
distant mountains that loomed in our way,
thunder booming down valleys dark-hymned.
What I found, I found lost in her face
by yielding all my virtue to her grace.
Originally published by Romantics Quarterly as "A Dying Fall"
Until There Are None
In Vegas there used to be…
Seagulls on light poles
Lizards on walls
Roadrunners in backyards
And now there’s none at all
Wild horses and wild mules
Are vanishing fast
Conservation and good intentions
Make sure they won’t last
Used to be tumbleweed
Blowing into town
Now too many houses
No tumbleweeds to be found
Smog has dimmed
Our once bright sunny days
Now our skies are limned
In L.A Haze
It’s the nature of things
To ne’er remain the same
But that good things should vanish
Is a crying shame
Nothing’s meant to last forever
Not even our torrid Vegas sun
My heart will repeat only
so many more Beats
…And then there will be none…
121 words
In the jaundiced light of the pock-marked moon,
Nevada nights many strange visions have seen
But few match spring time rapidly rutting rabbits
Racing and romping in moonlight madness;
Frolicking free in a sagebrush sea
Amidst white-crested mountain waves;
While whirlwinds swirl and in playas play
One hundred and forty fathoms deeper
Than luna-limned beach strands of dry lake shores.
Bobcats lurk in the moonbeam shadowed deeps,
Eager to feast on the bounding banquet
Of loco late-night leaping lepuses.
Madling moonshine swilling drivers pop a
Fair share of raw rabbits upon their grills
As coyotes yowl over missed moonglow kills.
My Love is like the Sky, a wind of dreams,
Like trailing Heav’n her garment covers me,
Stars line her cloak, her sword’s not what it seems,
It’s limned with lightning, she pulls it from a tree!
Her glowing hands and face show golden moons
Penumbra them about in pregnant mist,
They streak across the Night, bestowing boons,
Her lips, always, and never, to be kissed.
Beneath her softshod feet, angels press up,
And keep her from the burden of the earth,
From Paraclete Dove, comes the proffered cup,
Engilded, and enjeweled with gems of mirth
As bright as sun that shines on fields of snow,
From thence, drinks, smiles, and makes the darkness go.
Why do bonfires make us gaze
With glassy stare
Into the blaze
Why do we peer into the pyre
As if writhing air
Had words limned in fire
Words enchanted…writ in haze
Scribed by fiery fingers
In portentous primal ways
Flames dancing to a cosmic song
That tugs one’s heart
And soul along
Until the pop… and snap of ember
Brings one back
And do we remember?
Not one whit…nor tiny bit!
Of where we were
Whilst it held our spellbound
…Spirit…
19 lines
The forest crowds the small campsite
By dying fire’s meagre light
I listen for the furtive flight
Of Nature’s creatures of the night
As chirping crickets’ songs unite
The fearful in diurnal flight
Race through remains of day’s last light
From Nature’s creatures of the night
Soon eerie fireflies ignite
A spectral vision taking flight
Make clear their presence here in spite
Of Nature’s creatures of the night
And owls hid deep in trees recite
Relentless question to the night
But answerless remain despite
All Nature’s creatures of the night
In dark foreshortened without sight
But limned and measured by the quiet
My patience placidly invites
All Nature’s creatures of the night
As dawn resumes its daily rite
I do not revel in her light
For I have witnessed more than sight
Through Nature’s creatures of the night
Written 5/23/2018
1.
Murders in congress
grimly ponder on parapet walls
on the grim reality of lost homes
and loved ones yet unborn -
their casual caws more muted
than the usual cacophony
of careless camaraderie.
2.
The still dark night
of scintilla-ed canopy
and eerie filigreed fingers
of flora bereft of foliage once lush
limned against the pallor of
moonlight mocking at men
reduced and humbled now
from their hubris then.
3.
Candlelight dinners
bereft of the trappings and finesse,
a gourmet's grumps bring together
rediscovered ties
of familial bonds under the thickened web
of electronic sludge and slime
now briefly removed.
4.
The sweet lullaby of a
distant mercenary generator
puts me to sleep
in the comfort of knowing
that i am not alone.
Troglodytes in surreal settings.
Did you suppose it would be easy
Wearing well these mortal clothes?
Did you not fathom Father's words
When this realm you freely chose?
Now the world wills you to wonder
If the trials were duly disclosed.
No way to know before the flesh
Trials wouldn't be as you supposed.
Much is hidden from our earth eyes
But faith can fill the voids to brim.
No need to struggle in a muddle
Deciphering designs limned by Him.
Reflect rather on our elder Brother
Who didn't doubt, didn't suppose.
He perceived pain inexpressible
And still He chose, still He Chose.
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