The rising red sun
arousing Mother Gaea
with bright red embers.
Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep for here. There is such matter for all feelings: Man! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.
— Lord Byron
Morning love sought with riveting pink and amber foliage.
hunter-green mask
encapsulated service
fanfare from afar
elbow-high fives
Twilight burned hue of leaves behind charcoal trees; mood
that familiar pink
dissimilar dusk
cephalopod ink
blackened windows
swings like a pendulum — hopefulness holds tight,
suspended
above rhyme and season
legs dangling
affright coyote’s moon
waiting, spellbound for the aubade reprisal of light.
regale of a New Year
trumpeting
cloud nine
peacock-breath
11/22/2020
Sunday
Cheating death with a masquerade veneer,
faking the failed attempt to hypnotize,
the prisoner showed no pain as suture
closed the deep knife wound bathed in crimson blood.
His eyes were closed, ebony thoughts within,
blackened to obscurity by his pain.
But his revenge would rear up like a snake
coiled up and seemingly aloof, hiding
behind his opaque compliance and accord.
The razor blade hidden beneath his tongue
would soon be slashing searing and cutting
deep within his enemy's foul, brown flesh.
Shadow of silence darkness abounding
Cloak of disruption anger surrounding
Awaiting the moment of disaster to prey
Tumultuous faces turning astray
Resilience bequeathed, resistance absurd
Arduous path vindicating the urge
Death at the narrows, helps ease all the pain
Teeth clenched and gnashing the tourniquet strains
Concoction unknown sizzles its guile
The ply of the stamp offers up smiles
A concave of filth welcomes the flame
The warmth of the demon enters the vein
The endorphins rush offset by the guilt
A sorrowful soul so slowly killed
The darkness of death offers escape
Retention of those, who'll yet meet their fate
Reprisal or regret - both are meant to punish
Reprisal slaps the hand; regret lingers in the heart
Competitors of the fiercest kind,
Like weeds sown in among the wheat,
both sprout in the same field,
but only one of them wins out.
Reprisals are sharp thorns from stabbing tongues
causing deep wounds that may never heal.
Regrets are sown in the seams of a guilty mind
Where no salve can reach, and scars remain.
Regret, why do you thirst so hard after me?
Be gone to slake your enmity elsewhere
on some other unsuspecting prey.
You've tempted me to give in many times,
but not yet have I succumbed to your wiles.
I've paid the price reprisal asked,
I will continue to let his words condemn me.
But I shall live without one iota of regret
You'll hear no "What ifs" in my plaintive voice.
Feast upon carrion until you've had your fill.
My back is turned to your endless malevolence
You won't be singing songs of remorse for me.
I marched, they marched, we marched
For nothing now it seemed
And I the ego pulpiteer, left parched
Refusing to go underground with the stream
That carried me before to a sheer
Desolate drop, I can struggle unless I fear.
So here in the monastry of altar and pew
I come again O God to you. Next
Time when the fire starts, remember few
Were called to drink gall and text
And I among them have lived pure to truth
Provide a ram for the obedience of youth.
We shall unclenching fist feed in fecund feast
Unwithering love to every poor
Spirited, staggering from kingdom to beast
Blind to thy Jerusalem's door.
I came because I believe, and tremble still
Slobbering at the invisible shadow of your will.
What else, each time timbre of trumpet tells here
And after wars dead flowers are left
What else could counter the clamour of despair
And bring me gloried on knees bereft
Brailing the gored gospel of its giddy solace
Pinnacled on the faith fluttering face to face.
After leaving sweating bricks and rotten pus behind
We agreed our Moses was not blind
But then standing at desolate sea, we come to find
The army was galloping in our mind
If only we could be still, and see clear before us
The impossible sea to defeat
What strength was made from faith's plain chorus
What pushed the water from our feet.
After circling the desert of worship, the cold wilderness
We came to a mountain high as fear
Stopped, ate, played, and fumbled our righteousness
When no Moses from its peak did stare
If only we had heard, the voice, the eternal word
The fountain of the bitter emptiness
Of spring and vision gone. The fire weld us as a herd
and Jordon wash again our filthiness.
And then we disembark plane or ship to find at last
This aint the promiseland we need
The King saw the mountain dreaming free at last
While children bombed to splinters bleed.
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