Rutted twittens, ivy shadowed
flecked with fuchsia blooms
as spring nods gaily
to wake dozy summer
and clattering of feet
on the sparse cobbles
that meander in quaintness
toward sprawling flea markets
where bustle and laughter
of children, echo, larkish
amid the ruddy traders
who grin and joke
behind their wobbly trestles
draped in gingham cloth
that sport a shambles
of vibrant, ancient treasures.
In its place, not on a cart,
rutted and mixed with dung;
consistent too, in its purpose
as it was when the world was young.
No shame attached that from it came
fell man who disobeyed.
Man, who needed an ark and law;
who brought the curse and strayed.
The ox had stumbled in the mud;
the ox who pulled the cart,
which, though brand new and garlanded,
should not have played a part
in returning the holy object;
and as it slid to fall to the road,
Uzzah thought his hand more pure
and reached to steady the load.
Profane flesh touched pure gold
instead of wet chaste earth;
when a man thought too much of himself;
too much of his own worth.
He died right there with good intent,
and cheering turned to mourning
when mud was better than man
and God gave us His warning.
His dog stops often to sniff
the scuffed turf
of this recreation park.
It smells last Sunday's soccer game,
by tracing the sweaty play, the spots
where the spinning ball
slid crazily,
through layers of musky mud.
The man of course smells little of this,
he only smells the ethereal
trace of her memory,
her arms clasped around him,
when on this very field
they had to part.
Yet even here
in this rucked and rutted earth
like a dog he follows a certain scent
one that the dog never will.
Picking imprints from everywhere,
Let all the woods your footprint bear,
Take off, nag at no rutted tract,
What if some rickety ways stare.
Throw to winds every needless care,
Let no head wind unduly dare,
Let the worse worsen, worst to get,
Let all the woods your footprint bear.
Mind not eastward you go or west,
If north, let not south ever jest,
Let no alien thought you attract,
Let all the woods your footprint bear.
Root out doubts as you’d thorny weeds,
Walk, brave only to their hearts heeds,
Let eastern nor west wind distract,
Let all the woods your footprint bear.
Letting no stumbling blocks scare,
Sparing none any endeavour,
Pricks of no space-time interject,
Let all the woods your footprint bear.
_________________________
Quatrain |14.11.2024|traveller
Life’s Jackdaws
I wish it were now! Yes now!? ?Seven tens and two years further along,
like that dead headed summer garden, you know the song, you a long time gone,
In your eyes I saw all the answers, to all those questions which I never knew then,
you never spilt any, I constantly watched for drips of clues uttered unhidden.
Oh, and how, now, that impossible conversation would level this rutted path of blunder,
wonder rattles those memories, stirring thoughts echoing as loud, rumbling mind thunder,
in a spiteful way, where washed up confusion reigns answerless, wishes would become,
a frail burnt paper kite in a storm of lightning shadows, no solace to share just numb.
Instead, we coral horses galloping in endless circles, ridden by yesterday’s spectre,
So, we as empty wonder boxes, move on in the shadow of the hourglass’s collector,
we don’t see the time pass, we see the thoughts pass, on a destiny bound runaway train,
amid the cackling squabbles of life’s Jackdaws wielding their blunted knives life stained.
Written: May 6th 2024
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's tough to revel in delight, but I grew!
Dreams rouse me, not in an aphonic view.
Nature provides her bounty every day,
I extend my hand and grasp her sway.
I perceive my youthful self in that place,
Her offerings were serendipitous grace.
In her sphere, blooms, and waterfalls,
A supple deer, an oaring raptor, in altar calls.
Each contributes to a feeling of calmness,
She was a fountain of pure suaveness.
Yet wars and famine steal my breath away,
A sight, luring amid a rutted path of ruby clay.
A moody inquiry into the root of my being,
A fleeting time of pure delightful feeling!
Thus, I wound up shooting my future ego,
Lift a glass, not a pistol, in a sky-dip indigo.
I rise again, and the sun surrounds me,
I can predict zodiac signs and lunar spree.
Along with Mars, Venus, and other oddities,
My mind spills, leaving no room for prodigies.
I shot for my destiny with this radical rhetoric,
Pulling me up a path reflected as historic.
A flash of his pistol, a gaze that said, walk,
My handgun babbled in its wandering talk.
The wind blows across
empty cattle yards
and tailing mounds
from old copper mines,
across open spaces
that spread beyond
boundary fences
and the reach
of railway lines,
way out past
the rutted wakes left
by four wheel drives.
Only bones take root
out here and grow
into phantoms
who haunt the horizon,
finding voice in the moans
that wander the land
in search of lost
ancestral homes.
Something ancient
sleeps here
deep underground.
Coiled in a sacred womb
it waits for rebirth.
Beneath the quiet cathedrals
of vaulted nights
you can hear it breathe
through pore holes
rising up out
of the red earth.
Far away,
corralled inside coastal cities,
a nation grows deaf
on the din of its own noise.
Blinded by the dazzle
of unresting lights,
it floats the continent
dangling clots
of shallow roots.
There was a day once
when the factory boys
took to a rusty van
driving through the early morning dark
to play soccer on a muddy field.
Our team was called. now let me think,
does it matter that I cannot remember?
Let's call our crew the 'Raging Eagles'.
the Eagles had pimples and bad breath,
but we were all mates for the day.
It's not easy to 'rage' on a rutted field
in the middle of an industrial estate
on a misty Sunday, but we did our best.
The other team arrived full of snarky-jeers and leers.
Insults were returned, added to and sent back.
The game was more a donnybrook than
regular soccer.
Rules were made up on the fly
only to be broken.
Legs were kicked black and blue,
one arm and a head diagnosed by one and all
as totally for33ked.
Later we convened to a pub
at the other end of that sooty town
and downed a few, then a few more,
vowing to be brothers forever.
(On the road to Kailash, Tibet, 2009)
There and Back Again
Pilgrimage
An ideal place
Seen through
An ideal lens
And so we go!
The journey of all souls
In endless procession
To the top of the world
Up above the highest heights
Where the air is thin
Light bright
Mind clear
Up where idealism
Meets the rutted road
As dust settles
To be just this
And then more of this
Bad food
Bad sleep
Bad roads
And good company
All within a beauty
Best appreciated
In retrospect
And coffee table books
In the moment
Self-flagellating
Down the path
To enlightenment
Seeking what
We’ve always had
But never held
A view of inner peace
Light and love
Purified of its dross
By the grind of the road
We pilgrim on
This endless dream
There and back again
There and back again….
(9/11/23)
An old man plods slowly down the rutted middle
Of an ancient dusty country lane, unmindful of his steps.
His calloused sandaled feet know the way,
As he has trodden this path to market for decades,
Or centuries perhaps,
He no longer tries, or cares, to remember.
Time has lost all meaning.
Bowed beneath the heavy weight of years and toil,
He wears the mantle of his life,
Not proudly as he once did in his hopeful youth,
But now the way he bears his cumbersome burden
Of broken limbs and sticks and twigs,
With a resigned and weary sadness as immutable and maimed
As the arthritic stumps and knees of old cypress trees,
Or countless other old withered and withering men
Like him.
Author's note: This piece, dear readers, was inspired by "Man with a Sack of Wood", a sketch by Vincent van Gogh.
Upon this rock, was my fate etched
By the hands of Akooke Olemo.
I lingered on her laps like mummy’s boy,
Though my own blood at me, distantly beckoned.
Her Martian hand nurtured and nourished me,
And made me dance to the Luo drumbeats;
Singing sweet songs in tongues, tongues of discord;
Music that ruggedly rutted the faces of my kinsmen!
Then our native drums sounded a call,
A call to a wayward son of the soil,
An invitation long awaited,
A time for initiation into the ways of Ateker.
And to the cadence of Atenus beats, my feet did rebel.
Now, to my motherly rock, I must return;
For in her rough rugged back,
Was my dismally dark destiny scribbled:
“Emoit.”
Life is like a rough, rutted road,
With rocks to trip, to catch and hold.
But love can smoothens the path ahead,
If we cast out hatred instead.
Copyright 2023
A man
tensely
tied to a
tired tempered tower.
With his mind
like a reticent
rutted rat
scurrying off
to cower
within the
crooked cryptic
corners of
reality.
But whose
heart is the
only hand
reaching out
of the rubble.
Still hanging
onto a
half hushed
howl of hope.
I carry vials in a pack on my back
containing the remnants of my past
desiccated into dust
pulverized into powder
At the side of the rutted road I stop
at intervals as I aimlessly wander
Carefully choosing one, mixing the contents
with muddy water from puddles, drops of blood
I prick from the tips of my tender fingers
creating clay I attempt to sculpt and mold
into something more than before
A life I was not allowed to live
A golem of a me that will never be
A form pleasing to your finicky eyes
that favor petite perfection
blind to the beauty that resides beyond
that time cannot touch
transcending the transient physical
She cracks and crumbles in my hands
before I can complete her
as I do not know the name of God
He has never cared to know mine
Truth and death in art
but a letter apart
The Alleys of Virtual Municipalities
By David J Walker
I love walking
the rutted roads
Running in
hidden groves
Through
the residential jungles
the rambling
backyard boulevards
dividing the
single file plies of
dirt and gravel
A straight line between
Picket fenced fortresses of
Flimsy privacy providing
Trash truck Sunday drivers with a
A No man’s land-bound with trees &
Treasures found by
dumpster divers
I love listening
To the feral catcalls
in the last stand of
wildland
Overruled by skulks of city foxes
I love trekking
The pioneered turnpikes
On fast mountain bikes
Riding & reading between
the telephone lines
mapped by
XYZ Municipalities and
The vague virtual realities of
An alley’s informalities
I love the
Tell all tall tales
Of what fails to be
Needed anymore
Underscored by
Overflowing dumpsters
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