Submission, sound thy service.
O slave, soar as ye fall.
Sacred vision, sacrifice.
Keel o'er, one and all.
Thunder on the mountain steep?
Storm, thy purple cloud.
O ye shepherds, guard thy sheep!
Burial, thy shroud.
Raw the wounded inside?
The pain is very fresh.
Poisonous snake, how you hide!
Chain mail, be my mesh.
Yellow queen in city old?
Warrior, be thou bold...
Cavern grotto, art thou cold?
Light issues from mold.
Gold on river bottom?
It's been there for some time.
Wargod evil, beat thy drum!
Hurricane, blow chime!
Deep the dragon's den and dark.
Dole and doom, thy health.
Spaceship massive, where to park?
Treasure, seek thy wealth.
Rake leaves for a bonfire?
It will burn hot and fast.
Will within me, on the pyre?
Never meant to last.
Roundabout the river runs?
Thousand-fold and taut.
Sevens, elevens, and ones?
Golem, what you got.
Dripping down the chasm?
Alert not anything.
Black abyss, thy spasm!
O fairies, dance in ring...
Time, be of the essence!
O spark of head and heart!
Fate and Fortune, Chaos, Chance!
Anoint, O my art!
Will, be with me! Stand and hold!
Glow in fiery cold!
River bottom, hast thou gold?
Underneath the mold...
Glass, clear vision, futures sought.
Slice of seer's trade, tell.
Flicker, form of friend? We ought?
Brightly rung the bell.
Eagle, lend thy mightiness!
Coyote, thy tricks!
Heaven and Hell, say God bless!
Priest, thy crucifix!
Questions trapped in wrinkled time?
Cane or cone or crime?
Yule! The choice of sung sublime!
Draped upon the dime...
Trillium flower of decay!
Shine upon the bay!
Dynamite, discord, dismay!
Point me out the way!
When we seek, we're sought? Well... Hail.
Prisoner, pay bail!
Drape thy life, O garbage pail!
Afford not to fail!
Carrion crow, about me caw!
Dread not, O my saw!
Thorn within the lion's paw?
Stab them 'neath the jaw!
Friendless is this wizard!
Thus look thee not away!
Blow and blanket, O blizzard!
Doom and Death, thy day...
Wondering where you are tonight?
Under the starlight I sail so bright
Rowing on surface waters that haunt me
Your faces on calm waters showing me
With my oars I hold so tight
Like your hold in me that caresses me
Winter dew that chills at night
Your heart in me, snugging me
Darkness now crawling on land and seas
On this river fitful hours spooking me
As birds and bees hiding in waft trees
Nearness of you following me
Winding, reaching the river bottom
Standing in white is cladding me
Over troubled waters you're standing over gollum
Your heart in me that's shielding me
Just like her favorite character Alice she dresses up. Around her neck a key adorns. On her way she goes. She has read of a keyhole that holds heaven on the other side of its door. A young girl named Cassy sits curiously by a riverbank. Twirling her long tresses as she peeks into reflecting waters, she fiddles with the key. It falls into the river, and she jumps in after it. Swimming for what seems forever, she lifts her head. At first blurry swishes of gardens and trees are all she sees. The images clearer, around her stars of sterling silver. The other side of the world is shimmering ever so bright! Cassy in awe, hears the chirping of birds, then swims further searching on the river bottom.
Waterdrops drip off her face as she takes a breath, back through the door, she clings to the key in her hand, the wren's singing their bird song.
Baptism took place
let go the crutch that holds back~
the child she flows
My feet feel their way
Along the rocky river bottom
Arms balancing
Waist bending
Ankles slipping, twisting,
Toes gripping on algae-covered stones
And maneuvering
Through ice-cold hell
Hell
Hell
Hell
Until you.
A warm tuft of grass and clover
Soft and green
Ankles burning with warmth
Love
Salvation.
having been created
with painful self awareness,
and
shielded from harms-protected from self
I navigate
Yellow Brick
river bottom
stepping stones
while I
step lightly through
Kansas
returning we, you, they, them
home
The departed possess
no clock
no calendar
yet they still love us
right now
This Entanglement
like it or not
blankets me all days
and brutal nights
until I embrace them again
Hidden, perched on high,
The Peregrine Falcon echolocates the
bird-in-flight warning song.
Only when intercept is optimal, takes flight.
Soaring over 100mph, wings and claws
cantilever for precise capture.
There is no app I follow, only the rhythms
of nature my Father passed down to me-
"listen to the wind"
"harvest the gifts of the seasons"
Wild Tansyleaf Aster carpets this river bottom
forest. Stepping around deep imprints left by
a heavy Buck, the symphony of migrating
Warblers sweeps through my wooded wind.
Brambles I avoid, Deer Ticks I hope to discover!
and mud sink-holes I traverse; as I approach
the unmistakeable glint of the Giant Golden Morel!
04/18/15
© All Rights Reserved
The boy I was so many years ago
Loved to visit his grandpa
Who lived in the best of places
This city dweller could imagine so
Those Ozark Mountains were adventure to me
I the boy and trusted BB gun in tow
Did explore the river bottom and climb tall trees
To breath the mountain's cold air made this boy feel free
The explorer I became for rocks snakes and frogs
To romp after a bee just to see where it would go
Or play in grandpa’s barn while watching my step
Go fishing with grubs taken from under dead logs
The swimming hole was by a low water bridge
Just a quarter a mile at the bottom of the hill
The tall weeping willow which offered its branches
Served the hot summer days as the ideal plunging package
As I recall how that red Arkansan chert path flowed
How this boy’s grandest adventures for nature and beauty were made real
For to walk again the paths of ancient Indians
What grandness grandpa gave me when I traveled just down the road
Alligator attacks prey
Lunges out of the bayou
Loud head slap
Intense jaw clamps down
Gripping death roll
Another muskrat say good bye
Tail spin immobolized
On it's way down
River bottom cries.
Pedaling along river drive
empty plastic grocery bags
fluttered and flapped from tree branches
like lost battle surrender flags
that line the drought-stricken river.
Their interspersed clings reminded
me of inundated levels
this now anemic river reached;
where once the floodwaters surged south
along its journey to the sea
its now imperceptive flow
struggles, its intimate's exposed:
river-bottom, water-worn rocks
sit like petrified bowler hats.
Natures mozaic masterpiece in multicolored splender.
A rippling change of dancing light the river bottom renders.
The heart does soar from what life implores.
Beauty like this could never come from a store.
The world goes round without a thought.
But beauty like this needs to be caught.
A simple stone and all it's friends.
May natures moziac masterpiece never end.
This is for Rick Parise's Stones contest.
God's creation is something to behold
I see with every leaf unfold
I it in every Robin and Wren
I see it in every river's bend
I see it in Spewell Bluff
With its cliff so ragged and ruff
Climbing from the river bottom green
To the sky oh so serene
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