walk by the burial ground
ubiquitous queues of lichen
awninged tombstones string out
engraving summarizes
bold subheading
who was adored by whom
I slide the dainty floret stipends
turn into gleams
scattered embers
riding the withdrawn wind
Written: September 27, 2022
It won’t be long before
everyone begins to strip themselves
of their own humanity.
It will begin with the hair.
Cutting it down to the follicles
until it is almost non-existent.
Then it will move to the nails.
Plucking and cutting and biting
until our fleshy fingers bleed and our toes rot.
Next, it will be the skin.
Peeling ever so tenderly and folding off our bones
until we’re nothing but internal organs.
Now, bring death to our nerves.
Ever so carefully, we string out the nerves from our insides
steadily taking away our ability to feel anything at all.
Soon, it shall become the organs.
Eyes being scraped out with spoons as
our stomachs quiver from being held in our stinging hands.
After that, it moves to the muscles.
Pulling them from our bones
until we are no more than mere skeletons of what life once was.
We lay there,
lifeless piles of bones and teeth
as our flesh and organs decay beside us,
All for the hope that eventually,
others would see us for our merit
instead of what they perceive from our surface.
Home is where the heart is they say...
Over the feeling of breaking apart today
My horrid hardships are like ships at bay
Essential essence of elegance emerge into effulgent efflorescence, I pray
Love will eventually conquer all our way
End the sorrow in our hearts day by day
Surreal serenity ashore hasn’t led me astray
Son of God saved me from hurting myself and he stays near my side like a kid with clay
I see a light of beauty and grace
Never felt negativity in His face
Hopeless as a harp string out of reach
Empty as a drum, yet strumming like a guitar in a gathering at the beach
Angst and anger erupt inside my mind...left me blind for so long — love is what I beseech
Road of recovery is far from here, for I’m homeless in heart for those who are of need and those who can’t speak their freedom speech
Tranquility and tribulation clash and teacher of the darkness — practice what you preach!
Parenting is like flying a kite…you do an awful lot of running around
using every breath you have to get your children up off the ground.
And you never feel prouder…remember how you grinned
The first time you saw your children fly…
the first time they caught the wind?
For you knew you’d helped them off the ground…
you helped them find their wings
and you knew, though they were up there flying,
you still controlled the string.
And when you realized they were good fliers.
when you finally had no doubt
Slowly…gently…lovingly…you let more and more string out.
And you kept letting string out…and they flew so high in the air
that you could barely see them…but you could feel they were there.
Until the day you understood just how high they’d flown
so you cut the string and smiled as you watched them fly off on their own.
Hoping that…wherever they go…in whatever they may do
every now and the the winds…will carry them back to you.
Hoping they know whatever joys or heartaches their life up there will bring
you will always be down here…
and you will always have more string.
When I was a young lad
I created things to do
I had an idea when flying my kite
I made a parachute with an Army man attached
I placed a Christmas ornament hook
At the very top of my parachute
I flew my kite way up into the sky
I placed the hook attached to the parachute
I let the string out and the wind blew it
Way up high the Parachute went up the string
When it got real high I would move the string
Up and down until the Parachute disengaged
From the string it would float down very slow
No telling where it would go
My imagination always ran wild
Pretending my Army man was going to war
Next time you fly a kite you should try it out
It’s a Blast
A YARN
OR
2
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A yarn, thread, cotton, wool, fibre, filament, strand, ply, cord, twine, string, and lastly a line.
I can spin a yarn, write a thread, cut a cord, sew with cotton, knit with wool, walk down the strand, ply a lid off, thread a line, draw the line, twine you round my little finger, string out time, clean with cotton wool, and none are a filament of my imagination.
A yarn, a story, a tale, an untruth, a written thread, all filaments of my imagination, all yarns.
Thread my way through a maze, through a jungle, wood, or forest, thread my way through a book of yarns, thread my way through rough times, one thread that attached me to my mother, a thread of life like no other, my personal yarn.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Watching as you
glide into apathy’s arms,
and collapse
listless and wondering
in awe of emptiness.
As your hands lay open
mine are bound,
our words of hate
hang from barbed wire,
string out,
fluttering,
like the miles of fur
on a rabbit proof fence,
separating us forever.
We passed
into other lives
now as strangers,
and when meeting,
our smiles freeze,
sharing the memory
of what our destruction
wrought.
In this spectrum
of now,
we share nothing,
and everything,
but the canyon
grows to swallow
all that was good.
Once we touched,
and I was a chalice
forged in your flaming palms.
Once I sampled the essence of you,
consumed by,
and addicted to,
the drug of you.
And….once,
I felt completion
with you.
Look at you now!
Remembering,
and wishing
my hands unbound.
I see you sneak glances
from the emptiness,
always knowing…
Pride will win
The melon yellow sun, burns through
the winter forest,
backlighting it in shades of gray and mauve,
causing retinal flashes;
impeding the forward progress of traffic.
Car headlights, string out across the vista
of days end, like reminders of Christmas past.
Red tails flare, as the iron horses baulk
at fallen limbs, left by the last winter storm.
The air is heavy with
the monsters mechanical breath.
And, within the belly of the beast,
behind their lensed lids, condensation forms.
Frost, smeared by the fingers
of its symbiotic masters,
make the lifeless quadrupeds appear myopic,
As they rush frantically forward into
the on coming night.