Waking Up in Buffalo

Miles of open road,
Freshly buckled by
Bearded men in reflective vests
And orange hardhats
Finally I stretch
Over starched sheets
Twisted and crumpled
My view, the slice of
Light peaking through
Thick, rug-like curtains
Waking up in Buffalo
Was not planned
Back on the road
Only a short distance
Finally I breathe,
Noticing the fragrant blossoms
Black-eyed Susans,
Blackberries,
Wild strawberries
My senses delighted, caressed
Here I meet the lion
Smooth boulders for resting,
Pure waters roaring
Earth’s artery exposed
Untamed by destiny
Nourishment for the likes of
Me, the seeking soul
It’s peaceful in the mouth
Of this growling giant
Taking gentle steps along
The curve of its cheek bone
If it had a face, embracing
Each moment
Each mist-filled gust
Drenching me through
To the bone.

© October 2009

Temperate Tossed

Sweet, Autumn woman.
made of ginger and spice,
and you imagine how
her hands will feel
before they map
the hard line of
your chin - you
sense the warmth
of her lips before
they touch each
eyelid, and somehow
her tongue tastes of
sunshine and black
licorice. she's got
your daydreams
sequentially on repeat,
replaying every syrupy
moan and each
soft breath, thick like
maple trailing your neck.
what will you do with
this woman you cannot
touch, but with your
kindness? what will you
do with this woman,
your garnet eyes cannot
see, but with your imagination?

© October 2009

Autobiographical

Look up and delight on me
The radiant bits in night's sky
The winds of life stroking my cheek
Romance pregnant with flirtations

Eyes captured in that instants’ breath
Passions and feverish summer tempest
Pedals grazing across softest lips
Love embraces love’s reflection

Shadows in the path of death
The doubt of everything unknown
The allure of the bloom not the flower
The flurry the hummingbird’s wings

The triumph of a sky dive
The perfect gem as a token
The authentic is more than what is expected
It drifts on the spice of the evening breeze

© July 2009

Darkest Light

In a dark empty black box I sit reciting lines
Mouthing the poetry of Elizabethan times
My thoughts racing in various other directions
Horrified by images; news feeding confections
In honesty wishing my mind and my eyes were apart
Echoing pit in my stomach cease swallowing my heart
Creases and cracks deepen into once thickest skin
Unsettled, shaken and more insecure than I’d ever been
Recede past centuries Love and Soul meant everything
This day their meaning blunted by Human Conditioning
Drape the final curtain around my bleeding heart
My time is now the dance of building a life apart
Twirling and leaping between past and present
Flesh chilled in the shadow of the moon’s crescent
Tightening the tunicate pulsing and bleeding through
Salty streams crest my cheeks knowing I have lost you

© August 2009

Liberate Me

I could wish every curse onto
The beings that wounded me
That their egoism would come back
Upon them in threefold consequence

I could recite every misdeed
Evoke every hurt
Reiterate every tale of malevolence

Instead, I choose to forgive
The beings that wounded me

To remove their poisonous darts
Imbedded within my heart
And return that venom with love

I shed their cruelty like a coat of skin
And step into the sunlight
Choosing the path of peace instead of revulsion
Embracing grace and liberating me…

© July 2009

Spirit of the Son

On your passage
Song of truth
Spirit of sweetness
Sighing cedars
Calling down this
Melancholy moon
Your presence strong
Voiced in loving chapters

There is a God
Your life told me so with
adoration carved
in Petoskey stone
We all will join you
Silver spun and drunk undone
We crumble as we breathe
But always, ever after, we remain.
Perfect imperfections

In a world made out of dreams.
Shall we run away
Shall we walk whispers
As others stumble over words
In stillness there is a message
An open ended invitation
Always available
Forever inscribed
His unconditional love of family
Scored with the red ink of love
Parted with truest blue blood
Reserved for a Prince;
a Son; a sweet, sweet spirit
Embracing his journey with God.

© June 27, 2009 In Loving Memory of Frank Ethan Ball IV

Insight

I could feel the poem coming,
forming somewhere like the tornado
that once blew over me in a dream

As we talked and my mind spilled all those details
all those moments where I couldn't see any clarity

At least I couldn't see what I didn't want to see

I always know what decision to make,
even when I don't make the correct one;
the direction taken is one I choose

and I know nothing means much when unexplained
I can't make you understand

Because I don't understand

and I still contemplate over the line outside my door
of people willing to be there
people wanting to hold my hand

isn't that all that matters?
to finish my story

I am much more than before

But the story doesn't end,
you see, and I rarely know why
I continue to be the navigator

The aviator without her wings
but somehow I manage to land

on my feet.


© July 2009

Scorched

What words will we have left, that break the day?

when burning leaves stroke smokeless in our hair

and scratch along the porch? What will we say

against the rolling frame of a rocking chair
to salt a season to death with human words,
or exalt tired arthritic hands to share
the Eucharist with weathered faith-winged birds?
Succumb our bodies to the harvest prayer?
I trust with tattered jeans on shriveled knees
and coffee mugs on railings do starve grey days
still lost in sacraments of skin, when trees
embraced in ember leaves the sun-torched glaze
of tongue on tasted word—until the ears
that hear I love you burn with honored years.

© May 2009

Unraveled

Unraveled,
These threads that held
The fabric of our lives
Woven together for a time
In the brightest colors,
The sweetest fibers.

Oh, how you smelled of summer
Freshest corn
Crimson tomatoes
Chlorine drenched skin
Before the scorching heat of August.

You said you’d never leave me
Alone,
In the garden, where nothing grows,
And now it is true, I suppose,
For though you have left me,
I am not completely alone.

I bask in the most lush,
Magnificent field of wild flowers,
A soft smile slowly rising,
On salty lips wet from weeping,
Observing a new life all around.

Drying these final tears
For us, my love,
The time has come to forgive,
Embrace the sad child back into your heart,
And take him home, now.

I will always wish that,
The sun guides your steps,
The moon holds your dreams
And with that,
I’ll forever give you my best,
Unraveled.

© June 2009

Purgatory

She flushes my cheeks
Numbness coats me
Smallest hairs rise
Walking in circles
Drunk with dizziness
Only upon first meeting
My toes tipped in wine
Your voice like deepest
Notes played on the piano
Pangs, resonates, shakes
My soul within my soul
Now begins the burning
Blue base of the hottest
And most dangerous point
Tearing up
Looking up
Sitting up
Outstretching for you
Fingers wave amidst
Thinnest air; nothingness
Cupping the fire within
My eyelids shut tight
Pleading that you will
Just appear
Just appear
Just appear
Confident my body knows
But my eyes deceive
Am I blind because you are here
You hands are deep inside me
Dammit
Dammit
Dammit
You fill everything
Color all my thoughts
Warm all my shivers
Yet I have touched nothing.

© October 2007

Once More

My gaze turning counter-clockwise,
I see mists of rain falling upright,
wetting the landscape before my eyes.
In truth is it what I see, or perhaps
it contends to be waning,
looming inertly at my command.
A legion of attached cumulus,
sworn to forever shadow me.

Sub consciousness freeing the ego
blowing grains of sand to mud.
Sweet spring showers swelling
clutching these words I write;
opening the torrent which
an infertile winter has hoarded.
No doubt some part of me has
awakened from deepest slumber;
and is scrambling to understand
this cyclical sheath and befit a
sprightly and empowered soul;
once more...

© July 2007

Every Word

Every thrill
Every child
Every will and host of many,
Tides bring to me love and forth;
Air to sweep the sass from its mouth,
And digs penniless to a new frontier.
Within the wiles and games of guiles
Beneath the harsh exterior of her Faith.
Rains brew deep-earth rejuvenation;
Chop down the sap of my Sycamore,
Counting the rings of life between us.

©August 2005

Bloom

And those spaces left by what
you've lost and can't replace
let their lessons bloom like roses
in your chest with a gentle grace
'till you are so far above that place
where you lost you

© July 2008

Untold

My heart is the earth that holds untold
Time's secrets of deeds that slumber.
Warm palms pressed against cold glass,
Amid thoughts made into crowns of sand;
Reminiscences saturate them and I weep.
Well into the night of fire carries purpose
Painful childhood, scratched and surfaced.
Married to forgetting yet betrayal is vital,
Unsettling the settled mind content in simplicity.

© August 2005