I stood as though reborn on mounded dirt,
which seemed so moist it strangely could assuage
the ache from bowels that howled from so much hurt.
Would ground then be my cure for pain and rage?
Enticed, I deeply pressed each foot through soil
till they took root and fixed me to a spot.
My ever-thickening trunk served well to foil
the plots of those who’d cut me. . . . they could not!
My limbs, though mighty branches, could not bend;
stubbornly I fought my transplantation.
I weathered storms that God or man might send,
sightless, living long in desolation.
Self preservation did this much for me-
old loved ones passed and I remained a tree.
Dear Moon,
Each syllable of your name sings a melody so serene, I find the scarcity of my own tranquility immersing on the tip of my tongue.
The hum of my profound fragility twirls along the brittle attempts to submerge into the cloud of my thunderous delicacy.
The remnants of my soul crumble into a decaying, dispense of dust, floating through the basins of Earth’s hue.
The scent of you radiates off of the vex of my skin.
An ethereal blend of elegance, silver and the spirit of my distillation.
I find each celestial fragment of my embodiment thickening in the night sky, enveloping itself into the safety of the split space within the stars.
The green of Earth farewells the gleam of my cells.
Each one shines with the shimmering pride of a newfound purpose:
The stillness of perpetuity in lunate.
The hush of eternity in galactic saint.
And the appease of permanency in cosmic quaint.
A final exhale until my excess joins your divine rock of tragical, obscured beauty.
Your gravel brushes against my skin, so calamitously determined to test my devotion, oblivious to the ache my ashes fester for you.
Dear Moon, I call your name.
Does a man become less hirsute when balding has occurred
and the hair upon the head it disappears?
Perhaps not !! It seems there is thickening of the eyebrows
hair protruding from the nose and much more fluff filling up the ears Pardon??
The witches sleep late in April
Broomsticks swaying on budding branches
With those noses you’d think they’d snore
But are actually fairly quiet
Their fires burn less brightly
What with the April showers
Squirrels steer clear of the smoldering embers
A passing fox tip-toes warily
I believe they dream
As the moonless nights
Echo with unintelligible murmurs
Curses muffled by a thickening fog
An eerie presence unnerves the sunrise
Shadows playing tag ‘neath leafless claws
Shuffle through the remnants of their night
As the witches sleep late in April
Amazon is my night penetrating
alert I sprung from branch tight
it is buck nutritious blood
observation stark from green-blue irises
beauty meets danger not looking away
lithe tongue saliva intestine surrender
Muscles sinewy, handsome black the Sky
claws ripping buck’s bones snap cracks
mitochondria leaps from atoms, stars dance
to splash spine fluid about sand wet soft
mirroring clear a rebirthing act
nature ascertains when to numb nerves to claws
no eluding life when hunger mud stalks
Iridescence watches flesh rip longing lick
buck relinquishing spirit ~ cannot groan
black fur transmuting flesh disappearing
leather into charcoal night appearing
her thickening her for next week’s killing
time folding ouroboros
Panther curls, tailing
_____________________________
[ Poet’s Note in Comments Section ]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At first, it was the small things~
a button loose on his coat,
the way the kettle whistled
but no one came.
Then the clock stopped,
not abruptly, but slow,
as if time itself had grown tired
of counting.
The wallpaper remembered
patterns they’d long forgotten,
peeling itself back
to reveal older bruises~
yellowed glue, pencil marks
where someone once measured
a child against the doorframe.
One evening, the sofa exhaled,
sagging into the shape of absence.
The windows fogged with breath
that wasn’t theirs.
And when the last light bulb dimmed,
they didn’t replace it.
They sat in the thickening dark,
listening to the house
unbuild itself around them.
*You may read the companion memoir vignette at poetrysoup.com/short_stories/ill_be_seeing_you_13598
The mind pirouettes, ideas come about
creative imagination seeded then sprout.
The thickening of the roots
the strengthening of the limbs
flourishing concepts from within.
Now it’s time to go beyond
an expedition to worlds not found.
It is here to be courageous
and test limits of intellect,
adventuring outside
parameters of being correct.
Shinoatis carinthitim spendocious tellee
Hoven precurios shallus ohhe freeh
Nowtween freye overis beh thye lates
Slowwlly koming bakk inside guarded gates.
It is this risk that must be taken
leaving the conforming habitual haven.
These outside worlds bring inside veracity
deepening the roots of life’s capacity.
Love, I cannot come and go tonight—
my body is a door swollen with weather,
its wood too tender from all the opening.
I have stood in the hallway of your wanting
with my palms laid flat against the grain,
feeling the quiet throb of its yes,
its no,
its maybe—
and I am tired of being a threshold
you cross in the dark.
There is a tenderness that bruises—
you know it,
the way a peach gives beneath the thumb,
sweetness rising even as the flesh insists
on its right to remain whole.
I have given you the soft parts,
the ripened syllables of my longing,
and watched you come,
and watched you go,
like someone checking weather patterns
instead of a heart.
Tonight I stay—
not in your arms,
but in my own.
I gather the small trembling animal
of myself, hold her close,
whisper that love is not a revolving door
spun by fear or hunger.
I will not be the room you leave
half-warmed,
the bed still shaped to your absence.
If you want me,
it must be with the slow courage
of roots thickening under the earth,
the way a river keeps its promise
to return to itself.
Love, I cannot come and go tonight.
But if you choose to stay—
then stay.
I have been eating more vegetables lately
my fingernails are thickening
they were never sturdy before, but they are now
Is it the potatoes? The carrots? The corn?
Could it be the lettuce?
Or is it my age?
Do faeries meet at night and polish them with magic hardening gel?
I may never know
A classic wind upstaged the evening,
Vocalizing Leaves and Tremulous Aria
Branches. On accompanying fused-sand, framed
and clear, began a run of finely tuned
rivulets -- busy writing, I had not
looked, and saw, dark clouds conjugating --
nor sniffed thickening troops of air~ my
sinuses alerting, their usual swelling. Came a lantern's
flash, came a vivid slash, rumbling
likened to a heavily weighted freight-train, with frantic
mind to lighten its burdensome, brooding load.
A good thought conceived in the soil of positivity
making its way through shard and slag
finding its way home into the heart.
The slag is cleverly staggered and thickening.
Filled with thorns and horns and dirty rags.
The good thought forced to play pachinko
with a venomous society.
Battered, fanged, and chipped.
The good thought came to a ragged end.
Staggered into the old honey hole.
There wasn't much of anything left.
I am verb! Created by the divine breath,
coming from primitive events...
Essence of ethereal circumstances,
Plasma of thickening, voids
Of invisible cosmic mysteries,
juice of amalgamated conceptions!
Succinct metamorphosis of balance.
In my primitive molecule, the genesis
the core of physical-chemical reactions...
It is from the axis of me that magically spring,
The health of subterranean energies
And the phantasmagoria of utopian beings!
Growing old, things loved and cherished come and go.
Phone calls- text messages thinning.
Tossed aside in a world of folly and thickening frost-
Growing old in a world that keeps getting colder.
Hard faces-hovering over graying steps.
Cobwebs in the corner of an empty nest.
Growing old, another funeral procession -one friend less.
Life becoming an endless blue eulogy-nothing more, nothing less.
Layers of experiences - wisdom making very little difference
Growing old, what am I to leave behind...
A fistful of photos- memories forgotten
A few half-assed poems
a small sack of dirty dimes.
Where does time go when it's tired?
Years lost to a breeze-like a willow in spring.
Hard times and regret chirp away at the mind
Like sparrows on a line-so little time.
Where did the time go,
I wish I could buy a little bit more.
To release this overdue dream from its chrysalis.
Place barbed words back in the voice box.
Pay the toll for goals unmet.
I need a bit more time for apologies.
To tether forgiveness to regret.
Where did the time go, growing old?
Disconsolate obsidian waves crash over crumbling dunes,
Sweeping afflicted grains of sand back into the depths,
Dragging my paralysed soul with them.
Engulfed in despondent riptides,
I gasp for oxygen amongst rippling currents,
As a fiery moon hangs precariously overhead.
Blood-red reflections illuminate the stark waters,
While calls of the lost sing to me,
Like sirens beckoning sailors to their doom—
Louder and louder, until it becomes unbearable.
Flaring arms fill with cortisol,
Burning, tangled within suffocating seaweed.
Farther I get pulled from the shore;
The horizon is growing fainter now with every somber beat of my heart.
Isolation shrouds the thickening atmosphere.
Saline leaks into my mouth, drying my tongue as I frantically spit it out.
Hysterical laughter escapes through lips without realisation.
Dehydration overcomes.
Sanity slips with each sip of water.
My larynx sharply tightens—
Barely a noise can be uttered.
Yet the siren calls of the irretrievable continue to crescendo,
Pulling me into an empty expanse, everlastingly.
If ever we needed to ventilate,
it is now…the thickening tragedy
of lies have become too heavy
for the respiration of living truth…
Indeed…the dire situation
has reached lunging capacity
and the alveoli of reality
are sparking gut-wrenching
diarrheic retribution…
Breathe people…breathe…
check the yellowing mane…
strings of manipulation pulling
thin loose-lips of a sinking ship…
Breathe people…breathe…
the corona of truth shines
its bright light of truth…glowing
around the dark moon of deceit
of Americanism’s tragic turn…
Be mindful… people …scapegoats
come and go…in God, we must trust…
rather than loaning our sacred lives
to ill-fated government iniquities…
As believers—in the Lenten resurrection—
let us be about the business of resuscitation
of our beloved dying nation—yes …ours—built
by the blood-brick masonry of our Ancestors…
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