An untruth is told
A seed is planted
My body is the soil
The roots infest my veins
The seedling sprouts
I’m overgrown with
Weeds
Tell a not lie
Planted is a seed
Soil is my body
My veins become the roots
A sprouting seedling
I’m a flowering
Garden
Split me in half
Save the flowers
Take the weeds
That strangles me
Uproot them all
My veins scream
The garden is gone
And the weeds left a scar
I’m just unplanted soil.
Once upon a time
the old songs were new
On prairies unplanted
invaders were few
Where rivers rolled onward
no ferries or towns
All riverboat minstrels
new ages impound
The time of the season
unmeasured refrain
And cursed belladonna
tomorrow to reign
As butterfly’s wander
o’er questions unasked
A dark shrouded answer
— the future unmasks
(Dreamsleep: April, 2025)
("Heaven and Earth", 2024, original encaustic)
Planting a Seed
Sitting quietly
I find a seed within my heart
and entering into it plant something
unnamable which was there all along
but unplanted.
The seed grows into a tree
which expands, arms out
to feed a sky it creates
which in turn welcomes and holds
it in soft embrace.
Earth and sky thus joined
complete a circle
conceived in light
but experienced as all the stuff
of dreams made flesh and fiber.
(2/15/24)
Ichor running through her veins
All blood is pushed aside
Her eyelids shut, her heart on ice
My fate she would decide
Wilted romance, rotting vines
Garden left in thorns
A lonely rose from last years bloom
Bent over in her scorn
New seeds unplanted, sterile lay
Her cold impounds the soil
To blow within a fallow lust
Abandoned there to toil
With one more look, beyond all hope
My vision love impaired
Her verdict guilty, poison laid
—in blindness I despair
(Longwood Gardens: February, 2022)
how old are they now
those that fell by the wayside, one foot in the unknown
the others that disappeared to the other side of the moon
why were they lost, spilling into the wind
tossed upwards, cast aside, like an unrequited memory
giving way like broken clouds
silently dispersing into the vast, midnight sky
how did we let them go…
turn our backs on an exodus we don't quite recall
while they took their leave without a sound, ...not an echo, nor a cry
fragments may reappear
weary and worn, without a name
disguised by the ashes that hide the flame
how often do we believe we might see them ignite
rising up from the alter of youth
like a sunrise from the afterlife
but grasses grew unplanted
sprouting out of nowhere
to fill the vacant spaces
we didn't know were there
____________________________________________________
8/31/21
contest Vagabond Dreams
sponsor Craig Cornish
last year's unplanted
milkweed pods are
weighing happily
not on my chest
of drawers but
my bedside
end table
beginning
to open on
their own even
oddly because the
only something that
might be soil is my must
be dirty bedroom allowing
them to reign and roam free
over dust tumble weeds and
dandelion peasantry both
blowing in a draft's breeze
around my room but the
regality can be milked
out of this weed
and and or but at
some time i think
i saw peripherally
black and orange
as my door hinge
spoke in a creak
that they were
here with me but
when i woke was i
a man dreaming
that i was a butter
fly or a butterfly
dreaming i was
a man
We have come this far,
In this forever, here we are,
a speck of sand, a blink
vulnerable as we think
we are not a never,
nor are we a forever.
Time will claim the choice,
silence the loudest voice,
All the whispers ever heard
will go mute in deathly word.
Vision seeds go unplanted,
timbers fall warped and slanted.
Moments shiver and sieze
with the dying of the breeze.
We find our home inside
the womb of the natures bride
waiting to be reborn
left behind lovers mourn.
Finality is a fragile thought
some fear, some sought,
and it is my turn for goodbye.
Time comes and we all die.
For contest: my muse, mortal
Date: 6/21/18
The water sprinkler ran all night
Water droplets cling to leaves
Round clear circles mirror surroundings
Or sparkle sunlight under the eaves
A beautiful spring morn
Cool, crisp air that sits calm
Awaiting the sun's warming rays
Maybe will see only sunny balm
New planted window boxes wait on more plants
To fill the vacant space
What will the gardener put beside
To live and thrive in this case
Cindy lies in an unplanted box
She loves this sunny rail
Should the gardener plant in there
Or leave it to her avail
Cindy the cat!
Treason Reasons
Concreted cracks, abandoned train tracks,
unaffordable housing built like shacks.
Unplanted seeds gardens of weed,
never having enough to satisfy the greed.
Unseen view, is the sky blue?
Goodwill bought unlaced white shoe.
The frontyard seat on ol' bucket street,
cool air doesn't help that kind of heat.
Battles kill, unordinary run of the mill,
another happy mailman undelivered bill.
Where is our morality? What is our deal?
living here in the now is such a reality kill...
bmdavey@
02/24/16
The lesion was
spreading. From
inside, I hear the wails.
Past and present
of time, plows
the furrows, in future.
Seeds remain
unplanted. I seek
justice from the earth.
Turn off the lights
I want to see-
the moon in its full glory.
Someone has left
the message for us.
Go out to face the wolves.
Satish Verma
My mind fertile
Grows unplanted habituals
Among strange plants
I kneel to weed
The little shrubs
Of hate.
I do not plant
All that grows
But heart fertilize damp beds
With dark clouds of tears.
Memories has hidden rain
Floods that drown crops of joy:
The things I dream.
Wingless things,
Shadows of old dreams
That make fears sit up
And scream.
My mind a fertile place
Grows faith
Unweeded doubt thrive like spring
And I kneeling
Whisper
Prayers of repentance uprooting things
To keep my garden clean.
I pray the Holy Spirit
Rains
Tonight.
The roots of my faith struggle in the dry
Of soil and rough of stone
Where weed by design are better grown.
All growth is by water ruled,
I pray
I have soft clay
For the potter when He comes.
From the back of a cul-de-sac the world one knows goes round and round
Woodlands to the rear, afore the home unplanted ground
The living scent of ocean and suburban family sounds
Mild days upon the sand, fresh night seafood on the town
Neighbors but in name, more aptly titled ghosts
Each group upon its own deck isolated in its roast
Few times a year a trip into the city for sport or rarest art
Salted pretzels, honeyed nuts, or steaming dogs upon a cart
One day all torn asunder, a household bound in strife
Pictures last not till forever, at least not in modern life
A home, a family, one small tale carried on to future years
To leave it all behind, a day of hopefulness and tears
Why do you run away
from the primordial fear?
Of tight emptiness?
A shapeless entity of drifting psyche?
This was your home
where carcasses of cliches
hang from the doors of wisdom.
Unplanted seeds
of vacant connotations.
Inch by inch you were eating
your prophetic pauses
salt had become tasteless.
Counting the kisses of
moths on the screen
a candle burned furiously.
I never picked the colors of cloud, of rain, of blood.
What becomes of happening,
of being, of reaching?
The stones of truth are very sharp.
The roads were conspiring
insects collecting, under the surface.
Circling winds had
a heavy stench of death
but words were very intelligent.
SATISH VERMA
Once I was an unplanted rose
Waiting to be watered
So I would grow into a life of beauty
Now I am
A wilted flower
Falling head first
Into the ground
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