Short Enameled Poems

Fashioned in enameled vacancy,
the gentry’s veil was pierced

Exposed unclean, all vices seen,
through fury sharp and fierce

The folly of their blasphemy,
whose cover all but blown

With blood to flow from ramparts high
—once driven from the throne

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)...

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The large, enameled sink
eats her red knuckles.
Mum bent to
her silent threadbare work.

I have new long pants,
I worship their long-ness,
how they stretch my young body
into an imaginary manhood.

Mum threatens to wash them soon,
I back away as her laboring ribs
speak.

My lips
make the shocked shape of 'why'!

Her hands keep thrashing suds.


...

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It’s the kind of day to cry about
To open your eyes let the tears rush out
The rain is falling 
Pavement slick
Maybe I should just slide into a ditch
Lie there cold
Lie there still
Sun-faded in summer
Enameled brightly by fall
Dew lined in spring 
Winter, chilled and thawed
Lie there in an anomalous state
Lie there taut and still
Loss of mechanism
Loss of will
...

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Listen to poem:

Taking Stock
--------------

I only tell of sunny hours...
A  s u n d i a l,  I live for sun.
I want all humans to concentrate
on what is good and fun.

I only tell of hours in sun,
and people look at me.
I am blessed with the sun's grace
so noble, and I plea

that humans never concentrate
on damp and dark and dingy,
but look at my enameled face
and take step back from whinging.


--------------------------------------

2/4/2019...

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Something about January
Broods my blood to slush.
A new year's unknowns
Hearkens hope to hush.

It's a dark visage that stuns,
Heritage of Januarys past.
Death calls my loved ones
With winter's harshest blast.

It seems we're trying to cope
By saying "Happy New Year!"
Yet one must toast the hope
That a wish can fight a fear.

But I think—I'm sure I'm right
The Reaper so deathly scary
Will call me an ice-enameled night
In the cold heart of January....

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A flicker of the lens, a shutter in a box
 and light becomes storyteller 
shadow becomes shaman.

enameled faces held
 fastened in a 5x8 frame
 fill the pages of albums, the
 carbon copied souls are kept like 
dried leaves pressed and flattened.

 they germinate through the years, 
 growing in wisdom, the inanimate vapors 
 yielding such a happy set of ghost.

while black ink corrosively set
 upon phosphorus turns in it's elements 
speaking in still life a thousand words....

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