Eternally, eternally all clocks unwind;
To be rewound — a life untethers to be re-bound
Old eyes forget the forewarnings wisdom teaches;
They widen to look anew where experience beseeches
Set sail into the ancient light anew—
Adrift upon a mirrored sea of stars and lulling waves,
Rocking steadily and toward an enlightened litany
Of ideas and shapes that mould us as we wake,
In loving arms and eyes that behold us
And each little breath we take,
One new timid star, shining amongst so many,
Outshine and out-reach the distant rims;
Cast an urging light for our daunted whims
Held in check by the shackled limbs,
The instilled deprecation that dims.
And let my eyes unbind, aglitter—
The horizonal-line—
Trans-destine—
And free.
An iteration—
A fantasy—
Adream midst destiny—
A new you, a new me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The wire rims~
thin as a whisper,
holding the weight of every page he turned,
every clockface he squinted at before dawn.
Now they sit,
empty orbits on my desk.
I lift them,
and the world bends~
not as he saw it,
but as I imagine he did:
The morning newsprint smudging into prayer,
the stubborn lawnmower that refused to start,
my childhood face,
always slightly out of focus,
as if love itself were a thing
that needed adjusting.
I wear them like a ghost.
The bridge rests light,
almost apologetic,
as if they knew
they were never meant to be mine.
Through Pop’s lenses,
the light is softer,
the edges kinder.
The coffee stains on the counter
look like continents he never visited.
The crossword puzzle~
half-finished,
pen dropped mid-clue~
becomes a map of all the words
he didn’t have time to say.
I take them off.
The room sharpens
into my own life again,
but for a moment,
I swear,
the air smelled like his aftershave,
and the light was gold,
the way it is
just before it fades.
The great golden
In gleaming rims rolling
Upward like tolling bells
Rousing the blissful morning cells
Some lapsed in dreams e'er unfolding
Prophetic harmonies sung
By angelic or demonic tongue
Dissolving in wakes of light
Swelling ever more bright
Dispelling lingering night
From sleepy eyes shuttered tight
Midst pleading groans and dismal sighs
The golden morning bid ye arise
citrine crescent dims
slides back from the bright starry realm
dewy mist descends
streaks of twilight cuts through sky’s rims.
It's an area totally different from the rest
From the language to the people's style of dress
Kids young in age but wise with street smarts
Teens sagging and hanging out at liquor marts
Shoes on power lines showing various drug spots
Girls playing double dutch in empty car lots
Loud music blarring from a car with chrome rims
Men lifting weights in a yard turned into a gym
The smell of marijuana just as loud as cigarettes
Where colors worn communicates you with a set
Run down apartment buildings ran by slum lords
Where complaints are registered but go ignored
Businesses looking horrible due to graffiti
Where you always find bootleggers selling dvds
Everyone you meet goes by a strange nickname
Where the less fortunate ask for spare change
Well known people grew up with this background
So the hood isn't as horrible as it may sound
Its helps people to be grateful and to improvise
To get their education and to become wise
Not continuing the cycle but finding a way out
This describes hood life and what it's all about
Potent grief exists in the paternoster
recited by exiles each break of dawn —
and they never cease to mourn with drums.
Exiles are men
with two lives,
and they often fast,
preferring to sip gently the treacly sap
dripping from the eyes of fortitude.
Riding the thin line
of the horizon,
they seek truths underneath
receding rims of the atmosphere —
the truths
of a desolated homeland
atrophied by distance.
They do not pray
only to return home,
but to meet their mothers’ funerals —
Mothers harassed to death
by ruthless authorities
whose diaries speak of languor.
How do pirates with their eye patches
count the stars,
and how do feathers of thinning clouds
react to the invasion of rioting storms?
Exiles are native drummers
gone for a festivity yonder.
Like the dead, they live in the
hearts of those who truly love them.
Potent grief exists in the paternoster
recited by exiles each break of dawn —
and they never cease to mourn with drums.
Exiles are men
with two lives,
and they often fast,
preferring to sip gently the treacly sap
dripping from the eyes of fortitude.
Riding the thin line
of the horizon,
they seek truths underneath
receding rims of the atmosphere —
the truths
of a desolated homeland
atrophied by distance.
They do not pray
only to return home,
but to meet their mothers’ funerals —
Mothers harassed to death
by ruthless authorities
whose diaries speak of languor.
How do pirates with their eye patches
count the stars,
and how do feathers of thinning clouds
react to the invasion of rioting storms?
Exiles are native drummers
gone for a festivity yonder.
Like the dead, they live in the
hearts of those who truly love them.
What gave me away?
Was it my sway?
Or my long limber limbs
Like glasses with broken rims?
Oh sure, wind has its way with me,
But broken or uprooted, I’ll never be.
Neither short, not tall, could be my description.
My strength and elasticity, a better depiction.
Cry me a river is your first hint,
And for a second; I’m easily bent.
Not a flower, or a bush, but green if you please.
In a botanical listing, I’m found under trees.
What I am, I will proudly bellow.
I’m known to most as a weeping willow.
Leather bound thoughts, tied on pages,
whispering to me of each day's beginnings
This sheet peels heart's despair
Creeping on bondage of words not spoken
that in the light, a yearning arises
Spilling yarns knitted but unraveled-
Time's remembrances awaken and heave
Soaking memories on the earmarks of carbon
To learn that passages with bleeding lines
Never open to rage of night
Restrained, I stitch the rims that tear apart
And recite the songs beyond the grey sky.
Volcanic Eruption Of The Soul
Now late April, and the grassy fields of winter have disappeared
in response to the airplane sprays of very effective weed killers.
The land is moist and brown, seeded for the crops of 2025.
And before long the tender plants will emerge, and the
anticipation of the year's bounty has already begun.
A red tractor sits in the open field, ready and waiting
for its new task. Meanwhile, its clean white rims on its
wheels, as if on display, are so very noticeably beautiful.
Everything truly is beautiful in its own way.
Your tops on the line hanging down
Swaying gently in the coolness of breeze
The evening comes in its violet gown
Darkening the lawn and the leaves
You turned on the light, it reflects outside
The pot that stands close to the house
Is illuminated most brightly tonight
I see all its rims and the flowers
Are stretching up high, maybe sensing the moon
If it can look out of the cloud
The air spreads magical smells in the bloom
Cicadas are chirping aloud
I think at the end of an August it was,
Last year, when you opened the door
And photoed your garden for me, just because
I asked you the same day, before.
Snow falls and day light dims
As the snow get so thick that it covers my Rims.
As the sun goes down we play around,
Snowball fights and as the day loses light.
NOT TO JUDGE BUT WHEN A MEXICAN
BREAK INTO YOUR YOUR HOME EXPOSED TO YOUR AMERICAN GRANDFATHERS WW11 HISTORY BE VIGIL THEY DON'T RESPECT AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE THEY WERE SENT THERE BY CORRUPTION TO BULLYING YOU BRING THINGS BACK TO THE CULPRITS I WILL NEVER FEAR MEXICAN BURGULARS HIRED BY SICK AGING CIRO GARGANO OBSESSED WITH ME THE BEST HE EVER HAD IN HIS LIFE HE SPEND THE REST OF HIS NATURAL LIFE TRAINING IMMIGRANT WOMEN TO IMPERSONATE ME SADLY THE MEXICAN BROKE IN MY HOME FOR EXPIRED ID CARDS AND BELIEVED THAT AWOL STORY WOW SPENDING DAYS AND NIGHTS ON THE RIMS OUTSIDE OF STABBING FIVE PERSONS I MEAN THE NEWS SAID BLOOD WAS EVERYWHERE BECAUSE SHE'S EASILY MADE JEALOUS I FELT BLESSED SIMPLY BECAUSE SHE PUT GASOLINE AND MAPLE SYRUP UNDER MY DOOR SHE ALSO SLEPT WITH MY ABUSIVE EX HUSBAND GOD ONLY KNOWS JUST WHAT SHE WANTS TO DO TO ME AFTER BEATING HER CRIPPLED MOTHER RESULTING IN HER UNTIMELY DEATH IN THE END FOR ME NOTHING BUT TRUMP TOWERS WHERE BOXES OF UNAUTHORIZED DOCUMENTS ARE SAFE GOD BLESS AMERICA
No one lit a match.
no lamp spilled,
the air kept kindling its hot heart,
it pulsed red all day
The heat-heavy evening slumped
toward a simmering earth,
clouds began to roil,
they swirled,
they broiled in a death dance
of fuming dragon tails,
a wounded flickering
that lashed out blindly.
We laid down our souls,
they were too hot to rescue.
We were weary, too numbed
to be either beasts or humans.
When the sun slowly fell,
carving its way
through the dark rims
of fiery hills,
a smelter of sweating rain
cut the strings of our voices
and revived us not.
It stands propped
against a wall in my memory,
that green two wheeler bike,
my first, bought second hand
from a neighbor.
A deep, gravel graze I got
from learning to ride it, I swear,
still pains a phantom nerve
in my now arthritic knee
after all these years.
How I loved that bike,
its dented frame wearing
layers of paint pitted by history,
its last coat was a thick glaze
of leftover house paint
the same green color used
as trim on window frames
and fences fashionable
back then.
To me it was a gem.
I rode it to the boundaries
of my world carried on the
smooth ride and hum
of its tyres, sank its rims
deep into the muddy riverbank
and raced around a track
that skirted the football
ground. That bike
was pure freedom for me.
One day someone took it
and left it hooked on a tree
in the local park. The top bar
of its frame had been
snapped clean through.
Beneath the layers of paint,
rust had eaten away
its metal core.
In tears I wheeled it home
and put it in the shed and closed
the door. It was like closing
a book on part of my life.
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