The late-summer track runs blue with deep shade,
While cicadas rasp in sun-whitened trees;
And ask what secret lives inside the breeze,
You clasp my hand where sandy gullies fade.
I show the compass, by the years decayed,
Whose faithful needle leans, and never flees;
We watch the foam that feathers on the seas,
While on the shore our wandering steps are made.
You ask where north goes, in your small voice calm,
As though the world was just this morning born;
You spy a blue-tounged skink beneath a thorn,
And hold a broken shell within your palm.
The compass points its north through dusk and foam;
Your wondering hand points farther still—to home.
When he said his name didn't believe it to be
thought the boy was making fun of me
Through diabetes had lost two toes
wearing sandals and it shows
Gordon was really an okay kid
kinda thin like he needed to be fed
Bushy wavy hair with eyebrows to match
as if above his eyelids bushy caterpillars had hatch
His voice was squeaky being a growing boy
lips thin, eyes big and ears like a Dumbo toy
He was average height looked healthy enough
but breathing through his little nose looked tough
His smile was his charm and lighted up the place
had to smile back seeing his cute smiling face
Gordon skate boarded and the boy could fly
soaring off ramps into the sky
He must have done skateboarding for awhile
falls were few and he had that skater's style
He looked young but was tall for ten
as a kid likable always with friends
Growing fast as a boy should
that Gordon kid in my neighborhood
Was polite and respectful but a tinge of sass
but that smile cover for him his laugh oddly rasp
Never had children through the point may be moot
If I ever had a kid hope he would be like Gordon Oddfoot.
Sundown creeps,
across adorned amber,
sky whose welkin,
shades volte face,
as evening edges,
into cosmic chakra,
of visual feasts,
orange, pink, purple,
prelude which emblazon,
point of day exodus,
atrophied moon winking,
mystic morph of,
dwindling halo,
to homeward bound,
throngs thirsting,
for redress within,
winter jasmine enclave,
cabal, clique, cluster,
in shrunken retreat,
from dreary toil,
nudge from nightfall,
whose cryptic code,
a dark art patois,
exemplified by,
eastern screech owl,
whose stocky medium,
and varied volume,
that twilight tremolo,
purring incognito,
among other creatures,
wet soil genus,
brisk firefly flash,
in town backyards,
wing rubbing katydid,
tree top rasp,
or amid green bush,
chirpy cricket,
midget burrow dweller,
allow oneself to wallow awhile,
in evening habitat,
in all its allure
Young Cleo had Caesar in her grasp.
So they stabbed him and said with a rasp.
You’ve disgraced us all.
It’s time for your fall.
And your girl can stick it up her Asp.
Shades of grey cascades on rainy days
Petrichor reigns after each pitter patter
Radiance of earthy fragrance does flatter
Teardrops down panes.. splitter splatter
Fades to whiffs chiding riffs spit scatter
Forever about weather they do natter
Seems the one thing that does matter
Flowers cowers at showers which batter
Tiffs as petal in fine fettle does shatter
Down trodden by a sodden mad hatter
Raised bed fed on shed drops clatter
Spoils for alluvial soils a pluvial platter
Some veg in tatters others seem fatter
Folks chitter chatter.. prefer the latter
Cumulus nimbus nimbly flitter & flutter
Sunrays grasp after a last gasp stutter
Sliding gliding riding wooden shutter
Rasp of uncouth din off a roof of tin
Staccato rinse & repeat beat does utter
Burgling drains & gurgling in the gutter
Huddles of puddles cuddle and splutter
Parched Earth’s skin softens like butter
Mother Nature's own homegrown nutter
Folks groan have to clear up soaked clutter
Mumble prone to moan but not a tut tutter
Mustn't grumble need the tumble they mutter
i will go out with a bang here
give me maple syrup and vanilla bean paste
and this continues into the weekend
as a confused barista takes my order
i drink the vanilla mocha in the car
as i drive us over one hundred kilometres
with a boatload of sausages and pies
and scotch eggs
i believe in a cruel God, who has created me in his likeness
i feel the primeval slime within me
i was born from the vileness of some germ or base atom
i believe that an honest man is a jeering buffoon
i take the last gurgling rasp of the beverage;
i have become a deliberate mess
Minds with different impressions
Eyes are of divergent quality visions
Mouths are of same but antithetic confessions
One thinks of Corona; another of secrets
Even with open eyes, we transmit different wits
To the world; world of colourful summits
My mask; behind it, I laugh and gasp
Like Moses in eyes of Pharaoh's asp
Growing rhetorical in my own silent rasp
Who did Corona and scientist take God for?
May be it would be difficult for Him to restore
And deliver the world He owns to the very core
Behind every mask lies fear
Even doctors' concerns shrinks to bear
And every lost soul let loose our cheap tear
I wonder if my mask is enough a credible care
In memory of covid 19
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The windmill groaned before the dawn,
her hands already chapped with dawn-tasks,
his fingers practicing Braille lessons on the kitchen table~
both stiff-backed and deliberate,
both heavy with the weight of wheat and words.
Fifteen names,
each one dug into the earth like fence posts:
Clarabell, Dulce, John, Stanley,
each syllable hauled up from the well
with aching shoulders.
The schoolhouse smelt of ink and sweat,
of small hands learning Braille and
the shape of silence,
while their own children ran wild
between rows of corn,
half-feral, half-holy.
Drought years gnawed at the ledger,
but the well never ran dry~
only deeper,
only darker.
At dusk, they counted heads by lamplight,
his thumb brushing her cracked knuckles,
her voice a rasp of hymns and harvest.
They buried two.
Thirteen grew tall as sunflowers.
The Kansas prairie took what it was owed~
calluses, sweat, sleep~
but left them standing,
left them leaning into each other
like split-rail fences
in a wind that never stills.
A hoarse whisper, at 2.49 a.m.
"It's over-it's over- it's-"
There, he is,
in his dark bedroom,
eyes wide open, but seeing nothing.
Fists clenched with sheets, and nails sunk to the skin.
He mutters it, to the locked bedroom door,
as if it's someone who's listening
to his confession, sorrow.
2.50 it is.
A tear, dull and frozen,
falls from his left eye,
just to land on his shaking upper lip.
"It's over- it's over- it's-"
his hair, wet with sweat,
voice rasp with dread,
with a broken throat and a heart,
he mutters the same,
again and again,
in same pain,
same tone,
to the same silent wall.
His over bitten lip,
now glistening in red.
Iron and salt,
mixed in pain.
He feels it.
He cries, finally....
There, 2.55, sleep is crawling,
not a fitful one, shaking, he falls asleep.
3.00 a.m. it is.
DANG!-the alarm..
He wakes up, again.
Just to begin another day of hiding the suffering,
and suffering from hiding.
There is a forest in my chest—
It grows no trees, only space
where willows once stood.
Where light rives in but answers nothing
Illuminates only the certainty of Eclipse—
Creatures born of Lack—
drift-ice flecks of snow
that fell inward and refused to thaw
They pace in slippers threadbare
unbearable—breeding Hunger into Dissent
like wolf-teeth gnawing Bone.
They are the sounds Lack makes
when Loneliness grows lungs
feral for the breath
I still must spend—
One day I’ll wrench them
into Riven Breath of Sky—
cavernous, storm-wrought
yet clawing still—
They’ll rasp the Void
like blades through Snow
my chest a Hive of emptied Bone—
And I
remain the Forest without Trees
oozing riven Light
that answers Nothing
being inscribed in snow.
Square a hectare, hierophant.
Religious mysteries!
In the attic looking gaunt!
Winter, thy deep freeze!
What to fill, my sacred space?
Buy a boulder big!
Smash in every foe-man's face!
Then begin to dig!
Tunnel subterranean?
What could have dug you?
Immemorial brain, thy span!
Many, become few...
Mounds space? O giant grave.
Etheric thy form!
Dial it in with color! Cave;
Corpses to keep warm!
Swarm, my wasps! O hornets, sting!
That will make them sing!
From the druid's tree to swing!
Flicker as you fling!
Serpent, in the autumn.
Is this the time to mate?
Reality, how you hum!
Thrum a-dumb, O fate!
Rasp in vicious voices?
They're circling in a cone.
Blight and bane, thy choices!
Break them at the bone!
Hope, flown? Grin? Groan? So!
Even flow, need a tow?
Caw above me, carrion crow!
Dapple, O my roe...
A lovely lake,
one she had once swam within
as free as any flying fish.
A would-be lover waved her to come ashore,
but she lingered in that blue lake
letting the waters caress her in parts
that no admirer could ever heal.
It takes forever just to rise and sit
at the edge of the bed,
bones rasp on bones,
hot wires thread joints.
At last,
she looks over the side of the mattress
into that blue clear lake again.
She could dive now, she thinks,
dive headlong and deeply into it,
never to return to any surface.
With a scream of joy, she surrenders
to those obliviating waters,
shedding many dry years,
and swimming quickly away
from the maul and clank of time.
Sumptuous rasp to die for,
utterly mouthwatering sound.
Say it just a little bit softer,
under the cover of midnight.
Run your tenor through my hair,
reveal the soprano within me.
Unpack all that is harbored,
saying it low with a susurrus.
I dreamt of a siren
with crystal skin and quaint braided hair.
her eyes, slow swirls of undying azure,
coiled around, her salt-sweet chorus
tightening at my throat
The alluring notes
pierce through my rasp scream—
In cold sweats I
wake up nauseous—
My vocal cords enfolded in her skin.
And it’s just like the ocean under the moon
Oh, it’s the same as the emotion I get from you
You’ve got the kind of lov’n that can be so smooth, yeah
—Itaal Shur, Robert Thomas
He’s Smooth-I’m Breathless
Rob’s smooth, intoxicant, erotic voice.
He sings slowly with sass, a charming rasp.
For ringing in new year, he was my choice.
The instruments’ charm me, I’m in their grasp.
A noddle swoon, elixir fix of cool.
An enchantment of sea and moon, in tides.
Breathless in nineteen- ninety-nine whirlpool.
In sultry croon - I lose my mind, besides.
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