Sunday, September 11, 2011

Days Just After Ten Years Past


DAYS JUST AFTER TEN YEARS PAST
written 9/11/2011 



Strange was the air then that fall.
You’d hear an airplane drone,
Breaking the morning silent.
You’d look up and quiver some
Then bow your head in
Silent mourning.





Illustration: "Children - American" by the author.


Each week on Sunday the Monkey Man gives a challenge to write a poem in only 160 characters. Like writing a tweet – it takes some doing to convey thought in so few words. Come join the fun! 

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Lady of the Shore


When you’ve been out in search of whales
Under the windy billowed sheets,
You dream of home and safe shores
Safe from the waves constant beats.

You go for days, for weeks, for months,
Until the hold is filled and full.
Water turns brackish, salty the meat,
And you live on hardtack and guell.



And at last in on the dim edge of night,
With tired body and fearful soul,
Your eyes search out the lady of light,
Where she stands beyond the shoal.

Up the mast, the call, “Her light”,
To guide you betwixt Hell and Heaven.
To a old salt home from the sea,
Lighthouses are alluring women.


Written September 7, 2011 for  Slam Week 9 at bluebellbooks. Com as inspired by the picture shown.



In the Colors

Move the colors.
But they stop and go,
Not red or green or yellow.
No, no, they flow where colors never go.
Some darker stolen
Painted skies from haunted worlds
And go away and go away
How I wish they’d go away.

But the colors stay
And they have a weight
Because they’re not a shade;
They’re not a ghost, a specter or a sigh
Of wispy hues at all.

Move the colors, make then change,
From dark and deep and deeper gray.


Make the colors
Give me back the sky
Of golden rays and lighter blues,
But be careful there if when they lift
That reality I fear within
Doesn’t fling the shattered palette
And blind me to the outside day.



Photo by the author

Monday, September 5, 2011

Bride


She comes all winter warmth
Swathed in clinging frost
And diaphanous gloom.
Her smile of frozen teeth
And her eyes of icy ponds
Send shivers through the room.

We think of death as skeletal,
Cowled with cloak of black
Hunched like some old farmer
Over his scythe and sack
To cut and carry us to our doom,
But no, death is not the groom.

Death comes dressed in marriage veil,
In a snow white bridal gown
With a long icicle train.
Our final vows are sealed by one
Who doesn’t steal, but stills our heart
With a lover’s kiss that ends all pain.



BRIDE the reorder reading by the author

It is suggested you scroll down and turn off my music before playing the video.



I am hoping this will work now on "Voices and Friends". Soundcloud burst and rained on my parade trying to use it for that purpose, even with Nancy trying to help me. So decided to go to the video route.

I am not sure why I picked this particular poem. Maybe because the poem was a troublemaker, too. One day I got this one line in my head and couldn't get rid of it: "She comes all winter warmth." I could seem to do anything with it either, except I kind of liked it. Finally, what we have here is what I came up with.

After chatting with nancy, I decided to record this in a graveyard and then realized I never saw any graveyards nearby. Where I grew up all the churches seemed to have a cemetery, but not so in my current neck of the woods. I finally located one and wandered back to these older stones. The folk in the house in the background were having a Labor day BBQ. It smelled good. I wonder what they thought of this strange guy kneeling behind a tombstone reading something? Probably thought I was praying.