Favoured is, the night alone
With its tombstone's lifting
Of what hid, hard-faced
Stoically behind.
Vengeful looking ghost, ablaze
Tear on indignant tear
With all its hurts, wrongs
Life's, parried, combined.
here is meadow’s delicate daisy fleabane
rising up to meet sizzling summer rain
holding her yellow heads high in each storm
stoically resisting a honey bee swarm
ideas of her own has this sweet bard
one of the few flowering weeds in my yard
growing renegade in patches wearing thin
next to her stands her equally opinionated twin
Frigid wind buffets the park’s lonesome bench.
It stoically endures as always
and wonders if anyone will venture
into its empty world this afternoon.
As it thinks of bustling, summer days,
while longing for sunshine’s steady warmth
and a view of laughing, playing children,
snow silently falls; no one comes today.
Curiosity brings me here.
To the lonely halls of the museums inner workings at night
The only sounds; the scuffle of a mouse and the gentle, rhythmic ticking of the clocks
The heady scent of freshly polished floors illuminate the way to a small, cluttered room. I silently watch as he stoically works, surrounded by clocks and timepieces galore, as the pendulums melodically swing the hands of time steadily towards the chiming hours
Clocks of all shapes and sizes cover every conceivable space and are overwhelming in their similarities and differences. In amongst the chaos of the room, the curators slow movements are concise and methodic as he gently oils the gears of the clocks. Tenderly polishing faces, as a loving mother would wash their own children's.
His body is lean and stooped, his eyes quizzical and searching. Remedying any imperfections that reach his eye with the grace and speed of a gazelle, alert to his surroundings. The curator is comfortable in this space, he needs neither company nor conversation. He has the clocks which count his steps towards the end.
I softly walk away from this mesmerising sight.
Midst the violent summer storm’s wrath,
He stood on the front porch fearlessly.
In the thunder roar or lightning strike,
Unafraid, he stood stoically.
When enquired, no direct answer came.
Daring stunt or curiosity,
A meteorological game.
Why put his life in such jeopardy?
Inside the house was another scene,
His wife and children were cowering.
On a bed mattress of coiled steel springs,
An antenna of sorts for lightning
Despite all pleas for him to retreat,
Boldly, he gazed at the angry sky.
Until the storm played its last drumbeat,
He bade it a respectful goodbye.
Midst the violent summer storm’s wrath,
He stood on the front porch fearlessly.
In the thunder roar or lightning strike,
Unafraid, he stood stoically.
When enquired, no direct answer came.
Daring stunt or curiosity,
A meteorological game.
Why put his life in such jeopardy?
Inside the house was another scene,
His wife and children were cowering.
On a bed mattress of coiled steel springs,
An antenna of sorts for lightning
Despite all pleas for him to retreat,
Boldly, he gazed at the angry sky.
Until the storm played its last drumbeat,
He bade it a respectful goodbye.
A tree ignoring me.
Standing quiet and stoically.
Knowing for decades
What we have to keep learning.
The secrets of life that we are always yearning.
He bends.
He sways.
He knows.
Something we can’t quit grasp.
His understanding
It takes cooperating
To live with winds unrest.
Wearing life as a loose garment
Enmeshed but not controlled
Stoically involved in every breath
Holding life within his cupped hands
Exhaling in sonorous agreement
A vibrational itinerant
Seeking the solace of the present
In an ever changing now
An Oak tree weeps with him
Sharing the endlessness of his moment
COME, LET’S WALK TOGETHER
I am not invisible;
look, and see:
I’m alive and well;
blood, bone, and flesh,
I’m the needle in your eye:
yes, that is me:-
I’m no longer a wanderer below;
I've risen high:-
I am up in awareness,
and will not soon die;
and where I go from here,
is in God’s hand:-
Where you shall try to escape,
I’ve been;
where you once held me back,
I now, freely stand:-
Hey, what would you
have me to do?
Indignantly treat you
like you treated me?
What manner of human
animal are you?
How can you viciously
destroy your own kind?
What manner of creature
would do what you do?
How can you stoically devour
your own for all to see?
What infestation destroyed
your born sanity,
and eventually devoured
your beastly mind?
Come, my brother, there’s still
some hope for you and me:
Come, my brother, let us walk together,
upon this land:-
Come, my brother, let us walk together,
hand in hand:
Here, daily walking together, in peace,
love, and unity:-
Stoically he sat
keeping the tears static
in his misty eyes while
my tears burst like rain clouds.
We let time pass, then rose
to leave the theater.
Black Chador
The women of Alexandria wear a chador that
mercifully hides her bony body, she could have
fitted a Dior dress snugly, but she doesn't
know this, she has walked ten miles to buy
bread for her children
She has been to the fruit market too, where
where rib-cage mules with sores stoically wait
A rich, elderly English woman tells the mule
As the owner of it, she has never felt the pang of hunger
Nevertheless, she puts bandages on a mule's
open sores
The woman in the black chador is oblivious of this
Empathy for suffering animals is
a concern of
the wealthy, those who have time to care
I walk stoically through life
with complete certainty of arriving at
some good place... when... I don't know!
Ecstasy was never meant for me ~
‘Steady as she goes,’ stoically
Saturday
A sad rain teases the windows
Spring worms wriggle gleefully
Robins do a wing shake flash dance
Wet squirrels shake their tails
The cat paws at the litter box
Dogs in tiny raincoats hide their faces
The garden Buddha stoically drips
I ponder the rings of my coffee cup
Saturday
It's quiet yet loud
It's righteous, not proud.
It's not weak but strong
It carries you the day-long
It's unpretentious; it just is.
It stoically says, "No fooling around; let's get to the 'Biz.'
There will be no applause
But it's okay because it's all about the cause
That solemn voice wakes you up early when you would rather press snooze.
Then it guides you to a cold shower because mediocrity you did not choose.
It sternly tells you to skip the night out with the girls or the boys.
Then it says, "Go prepare for the good things on the horizon and forget the toys."
When that favorite outfit no longer looks good on you or fits like it used to
It commands you to drink more water and skip dessert and a meal or two
It pulls you back between the lines when you veer off a bit
It tells you to stay on the road and avoid the immobilizing pits
It's that whisper that says, "Keep going."
Even when you don't feel like it, it says, "Get on stage and keep showing."
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