Returning

Unfurling––returning
In seablown wind––the windblown sand
Sans water. Returning
To gritty, weathered in-
dolence wrapped about that ethe-
real one. Widening
to catch the wind––a windmonger;
tightening to catch the
heart, fluttering foul
under the beacon
of sunken knots
of light. Here––
or somewhere 'twixt here and the-
re, sunken dreams a'bubble into foux
skies, tainted azure sighs, pearls of a canner
-y row row rowing gently to no more. Petty things
to sell, fall
into part-
ly the
wrong hands, partly sent
so bubblin' into no hands at all, retur-
ned, sans water, towards kin,
then-maiden knots.
Hold
Me.
Or
better yet––now hold my innar-
ds, kiss
them as a lover would. And lose
me not––unfurled upon
the
cypress wood.





In the end, what is returning but the second coming? From the grave, from the Great Flood, from togetherness, from the one. Unfurl the tale––upon the grave, the glittering shovel take.

Colores (Dolores) (Dólares)

Un arco iris
        de colores (dolores) (dólares)
Después de una tormenta
        de vientos (lo sientos)
Lloviendo frutas
        distantes
                lejanas
Sinfín de frutas
        el fin de frutas
                de rutas
Cuando venga el águila
        Que guarda el tesoro
        ¡Qué ardua un toro!
        Muerto, sin oro
La araña tejiendo su tela
        ––rediciendo la red––
        ––informática sin información––
Ahogando, con su hogar,
        bajo un arco iris





[un poema sobre California, inspirado por Diego Rivera y John Steinbeck]

Untold

...Setting a stolid face...

Why again––
Why did I fill each step with care
Evading your gaze
Eyes only on the path
Sidestepping your shadow
Through the open haze
Seeing through you
Like empty air
Taking from you
Thus
Us

How again––
Have I lost you for so long
Taken into the energy of oblivion
The adrenaline of a lifetime
A windswept windchime
Compassion, passion
Every melody
But your song
A hundredfold
Finally
––For me––
A bell tolled

...Within your infinite embrace...

Cliffjumper

                          If I

                      close

                   my

                  eyes

                  it's

                  easier

Eyes to eyes

The granite margin

Ears to ears

The west wind calls

Impulsive bliss

Only to imagine

A thousand fears

A thousand falls

                     A

                  coward's

                  eyes--

                  what's

                  wrong?

Eyes to eyes

A preterm pride

Ears to ears

Canyon-bound

The seeker's creed

Without the heart

A thousand lost--

A thousand found.

seventeen

Don't leave me behind––

They ask for too much,

forever wanting,

Wanting me

to satisfy them in their infinitely individual ways,

to pride myself on their satisfaction,

ingesting their fears,

washing away their despair

I see their countenance every day,

dissatisfaction every hour,

disregard every minute.

It's true.

I can't satisfy them.

In the end, they don't care about me

Why do they so hunger

for eighteen?

What can she do

that I can't?

What is she to them?

Another opportunity?

Another chance to

––what––

fail again?

What is eighteen––

but an artificiality

constructed by the past

disgraced by the future

––What––

Can she

satisfy them?

Can anything––

but their illusions?

––illusive––

––elusive––

When I was with them, they did everything

––to help me––

everything

––to help themselves––

but it's too late, they've given up

––on me––

––on themselves––

They can't satisfy themselves.

Once I lie dying in the dust

they might reach for––

nonexistent freedom,

false hope,

blind conviction,

But they're them.

They couldn't

and they won't.

They could never,

and they will never

Not without me. So––

Don't leave me behind––

Not like the other two millennia.

Not like sixteen.

Don't leave me behind––

A Sprinting Feeling

As sprint to sprint,

So feel to feel,

A lifetime perched upon a reel,                           

And breath to dying breath gives way,

As ashen air from shattered clay,

Ungentle light a bidden blade,

As broken seal by solemn spade,

Exhausted skies by thunder heave,

As tarnished steel the rager reave,

Immortal from the mortal flee,

As faulted stars strike dark decree,

As feel from feel,
So sprint from sprint,
A lifetime birthed of foul flint.





Because who can tire of such poetry as this? Just a spurt of energy in the endless chasm of life, in the infinite vacuum of that which is not, in the unfathomable void of––

Necessity

There are kings

—of wasteland,
ruling the domains of the discarded,
the realms of the abandoned,
the lands long left behind.

There are knights

—of failure,
shame is their steed,
aberration their armor,
blindness their blade.

There are creators

—of destruction,
erecting chaos,
forging blight,
compiling oblivion.

But there lies in all

—a resident but necessary evil:
in every crown guilt,
in every helm doubt,
in every mind mania,

And thus the most capable leaders,
the most vigilant guardians,
the most ingenious thinkers,
who warrant the highest regard,

—also merit, in some ways, the least.





Are we not all kings and knights and creators in our own ways? Mind the necessity as with all questions of balance. Mind the risk, the reward, the trials, but none too much. If only...if—

Lingua

These walls that close us in,
Disparate cells devoid of sound,
A prison to twist the soul,
A jail to shatter the thought.
Where nothing seeks,
And nothing is sought.

Reeking of the lightless stars,
Scorched by the lava of Libras and Leos,
Melted into a dormant crater,
Into a lifeless sky of ash.
A deafening storm,
But a silent crash.

Where music drops into static,
And color slips into smoke,
Flaring rifts to part the flames,
Stabbing secants through the ring,
And even as starlight ebbs, 
Arcs apart so somberly sing.

What once rang true,
So through and through,
Resigns to death,
With dying breath,
And leaves behind,
A world confined,
A nescient drought,
When words run out...





For what remains when thought is naught? What remains when all is consumed, when the world becomes everything yet nothing? Thus, appreciate language for what it is––and what it isn't. And wield words well for the betterment of all. #wieldwordswell maybe? (also this was originally completely white but it isn't for the sake of mobile users who lack the weapon of command-a)

Taking Inventory

              A single black hair, two

          unreturned pencils, fifty captured

         moments, three keys, a million locks,

      a family picture frame, a box of firewood,

   a handful of courage, a pen for when, a lie for

why, the line between goal and purpose, the moral

of an old fable, an untaken shot, the pennies from

the cashier, two fallen petals, a dozen unhatched

eggs, a sibling's advice, a dewdrop of resolve,

three impossible words, a paper towel's worth of

spilled coffee, twelve footsteps, three seconds

of complete failure, two backwards glances,

an unopened bottle of ink, an infinity of

doubts, thirty fumbling syllables, an

unshed tear, two meters of thread

unwound, a shattered mirror,

a white colored pencil, the

covers of an empty book,

some guilt, thirty regrets,

two seeking eyes,

one unbroken

silence of

what will

never

be.

This is the half of the tale we all hear. Indeed, this is the half many of us experience for ourselves, and along with it all the unsought emotions and sentiments. On another note, this is the side of poetry I rarely explore. Perhaps it warrants a quick foray...or two?

The Search

They sing,
And she sings along.

They run,
And she slows to their pace.

They search,
And she searches with them,
For something she can never have.

They wait,
And she waits too,
A lone raven among crows,
Singing a sorrowful song,
Running an endless race,
Searching the barren world,
For, it seems, nothing at all.

And then they feast upon their morsel,
Belting out a victorious whisper,
Dancing in empty elation,
Having advanced in their search,
For, it seems, nothing at all.

And she will sing,
Until their voices die,
And she will run,
Until their strength wanes,
And she will search,
Until they find what they have sought,
Until they become, it seems, nothing at all.

Having sung,
And understood not a word,
Having run,
And gone nowhere,
Having searched,
And found nothing,
She leaves in search
Of more who search
For, it seems, nothing at all.





Such is the price of something we, as humans, can never attain. In the eye of one who possesses this trait, we are such ephemeral creatures, who come from, and eventually fade into, and thus seem to simply be, nothing at all. So why would they search for that which they can never experience? Why do we seek to understand "inferior" animals? Why do we engage in the perpetual search? Why do anything? Why do we ask these questions? There can never be a perfect answer. On with the search!

Not If But When

When all fails to change,
When none bow to authority,
When the lowliest of the low dare retaliate,
When the mightiest of the mighty can do nothing,

When speech turns to drone at meeting air,
When ink turns to smoke while forming words,
When heads turn away at a single glance,
When eyes avert into the shadows,

When the ships fade from the harbor,
When the shop windows cloud with dust,
When the brightest gold dulls to gray,
When the softest throne hardens into stone,

When the night is tainted with screams,
Yet screams yield nothing but spite,
When the day is rife with enmity,
Of insurrection and utter rancor,

When consciousness and sleep are one,
When death and life converge,
When the once-dominant fall before the once-weak,
When the once-weak fell the once-dominant,

When power is leeched dry,
And reshuffled is the fear,
When taken with unsuspected force,
Deny not that the end is near.





For such things are inevitable...at least if history is any indicator. Yes, history, the silent witness to the greatest sins, to the reality that it is never if, always when.

Waiting

I lie,
Waiting,
Recumbent upon the bed of the downy chair,
Adrift in the waking dreams of almost-maybe,
Of perhaps broiled with rather-not,
Of if-only salted lightly with I-wish-it-were,
A sleep timed to the clockwork heartbeats,
Of the forever-eye mounted upon the whitest wall,
An immaculate white,
As opposed to slighlty-less-thans of the doors,
Both the inevitable and the threshold,
Two exits, though one only to lead deeper,
Into the lion's lair,
Into the hall of prison cells,
Where each second plunges one ever deeper into the rather-not,
Perhaps-if-only-I-wish-it-were vanishing into the distance,
With no going back.

And then I am roughly ejected from my nightmare,
Black expunged by overpowering white,
Only to notice
I had never left.





Liberal hyphens! Dark revelations! Inescapable nightmares!

Note: I will use five lines of space for future post-poem commentary as well, for this way the commentary is better distinguished (especially at a glance) from the poem itself. Additionally, this creates some space for thought, something every poem should provide.

A Dying Wish

Close comes the end;
to death append
a sort of life
without the strife
that might have been...

If only when
it all began
there was a reason
brought about
in a wayward route
by some sort of thought
when one thought why not
when one
became a dozen
became a million
became 7 billion
and all
began to fall
into place
for the race
that could only start
if the art
of the rules
and the tools
chosen
by that one
carefully done
so all could be begun
and all that is a dream
could seem
more real
and feel
like the paradise
that would suffice
to fulfill
the will
of the one with the sole
role
because what we wait
for is the fate
of the one.

Anyone.

The Nowhere Walk

More poetry!

We walk,
Our shadows trailing long amidst a wake of dust.
We speak,
Our words a haze of lies within truth within lies.
We watch,
Our eyes that seek the rust upon the needle.
We ponder,
Our thoughts lingering in states that are neither and both.
We sleep,
Our dreams a soundscape of whispering voices.
We live,
Our time a sliver of gold on the current.
But then we find
The gold is hay, and the voices tell lies of the dust.