No illusions therein entrap—
the hush between two heartbeats speaks too plain.
Ego craving is a mousetrap.
A gap—a gape in thoughts my life couldn’t hide;
betwixt two ponderings, vacuum took no side.
There lie all worries, begging for breakthroughs,
where failure stands as bold as decent news.
When steps grow firm, they clear illusion’s threat,
for success occludes failures without sweat.
A garden: fortunes wilt in stillness of will,
even when mouths flourish with joy and thrill.
Then ego becomes the song of deceit,
with beliefs failure can’t withstand its feat.
Before long, a cry too strong to ignore
becomes the downfall life has witnessed before.
It drags pride down through shining polished board
until the mud returns what it ignored:
the taste of joy, the scent of broken clay,
the mirror that ego couldn’t keep at bay.
Hold a conch shell up to the ear
to hear the sound of sea
trapped inside echo
as the shell cavity held against the ear
occludes other sounds
and resonates.
On a calm day you can hear
all the seashell choir stranded on the beach
sighing seas shanties under their breath.
Like heartbeats never heard, nor listened for,
except when ears are covered
or ear to chest is pressed
to hear the sound suppressed
in a seashell.
The road least traveled sometimes seems hard
I’m almost there! As the junction nears.
A husband, father and grandfather too.
A road full of adventure and sometimes fears.
A glance over the shoulder, looking where I’ve been.
Sunny hillsides, green meadows and dark valleys a few.
Tripping over life’s rocks, sometimes the road occludes.
Been carried by friends and touched by mercy’s dew.
A patriarch of my family, the king of my realm.
A despot! Benevolent, shamefully malevolence thrived.
With each pilgrim step more lessons are learned,
The sculptures incessant chisel on me he will not skive.
The journey lingers, soon only two will traverse,
Children stop by the wayside, their own way to make.
Husband and wife, her hand enfolded in mine.
The sun will soon be setting, let’s see where the road will take.
Growing old, like quartz and diamonds, the human being occludes.
The trials of life, leave cracks in the soul; grind the body back to dust.
All life recycles, in life after life; we all give back.
What gallant form from vaunted perch doth alight
Leaving tailwind that unassuming gawkers affright
Whose tawny shadow the sun's rays doth blight;
Swarthy silhouette shading glint so erudite
Whose tan-welted oars the azure seas doth smite;
With swift strokes the ethereal waves doth unrequite
Whose beige shield occludes satin rampart's line of sight;
O'er satin folds his opaque image doth highlight
What spindling machine doth wind's billowy currents spite,
With each sweeping motion a cylinder doth ignite
What grainy visage doth earth's footstool beknight,
With majestic crown his diminutive subjects delight
What predator drone spreads its cerebral kite;
Soaring fowl, creeping ermine safe sanctuary to slight
Whose steely eyes sky's tenants doth frivolously indict;
His insatiable, rapacious appetite to expedite
It lurks there, fitfully
around the corner of my mind
and will not show its face
like an April thunderfront, and
scarce aware that winter slipped away
a week ago behind a cloud of consciousness,
reluctantly occludes the air with nebulosity,
a shy Olympus in denial.
It moves within my chest, a void
creating sleep, denying it
as some sardonic phantom torture
just outside the room...
the stillness its ally...
the calm a faithless sanctuary,
death delayed as if my very breath were there
to test a faith that I no longer own.
What kind of ghost reality
will mock its own existence...
claim its victim with an objectivity
in doubt...a phantom court
without a charge to read,
a plaintiff unidentified?
Indeed, what kind of God
could graciously endow
his Adam in a garden home
so redolent with unseen sin
diffused before his unborn eyes?
I do not know. For though millenia
have passed, I'm only of hominidae,
my blueprint is not finished and
my paradisal masterwork
amorphous, cold beneath my touch,
and still.
~
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