Sunday, January 27, 2013

Where the Rainbow Ends


We begin this journey of life
Down a road we do not yet know.
We see the blossoms of the moment,
Costumed in dancing colors
That entices us like the bees,
To their perfumed petal traps
And we lust to gain their beauty,
 To glisten like the rose after a rain.

We watch the sun rise upon the distance city,
Turning the towers of glass to gold,
Shimmering like a river of riches
And our eyes serve us our breakfast of wants
Sprinkled with the sweet sugar of excess.
We glutton for the fat of the land.
Our stressed heart beats faster
As the grasp of our hands
Fills our veins with the empty
Calories of success.

We ignore the storms of warning
That dare darken our skies and the path
To our ever bigger car and grander house.
We fill our rooms with non-necessities
To gorge our obese egos
And we ignore the dust specks of reality
That swirl about the air to settle
Lightly upon our treasures
As if in echo of some ancient tome.
Not Home Sweet Home,
But ashes to ashes and
Dust to dust.

We do not see the light for the shimmer.
Our eyes are always to the rainbow,
An illusion of sun and water,
A trick of diffusion
And a lure to delusion.
We cannot own the colors,
But can we the Pot of Gold at its end?
But where the rainbow ends
Lies the mire of despair and truth.
When we reach the distance touchdown point
The rainbow fades away
With all we ever gathered
And we are left naked before the eyes of God.


June 2012

Photograph by Ronald W. Tipton, December 21, 2012, used by permission.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Stalker


STALKER



Who dat
Tap his cane
‘Gainst me doorstop
Loudly?
Stay aback, alack, alack.

Who dat
Dims my eyes
Eve’ to sunshine
Brightly?
Stay thy hand, oh man, oh man!

Who dat
Shadows me
With scythe and clock
Nightly?
Hold a spell, o hell, o hell!


Put up
Or shut up.
I will not go
Lightly
Into the hand of death this day.

My heart
Will struggle
To its last beat
Proudly
Before I go, oh no, oh no!

May 2012

All Souls


ALL SOULS


Moonglow on the tombs shown.
Stones like white blooms
On the slope of last years souls.

Beneath the ground not a sound,
No moan of protest
From the bones of last years souls

In the cities and the county
Walk the dying and the dead,
A bumper crop of next year’s souls.

May 2012

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Full Barns


FULL BARNS



There is dust across the fields tonight.
The moon shines upon a forgotten plow.
Tomorrow in the dawn nothing changes.
The furrows remain unseeded, unattended.
The crop brought a banner yield at harvest
And the farmer took his rest.

He tore the old ones down and built anew.
Big sturdy silos and heavy wooded stalls
To hold all the grain and produce
Through the year and seasons to come.
He planned a banquet every day
And drank wine the very best.

He worked the summer long in the heat and dry,
Plowing in the spring and weeding through
Until the corn grew tall, the apples sweet,
For the cool crisp autumn harvest where
He took in his bounty of the labor.
And tore the old ones down and built anew.
“I’ll grow fat now”, was his jest.

So he filled the cribs to the breaking point,
He stacked the fruit up to the ceiling
And scattered wheat across the threshing floor.
“I’ll live a life of ease and merriment,”
And with that cry he challenged God.

Now these wait full for the burrower and thief,
Fine food to feed the pests.

2012