Belated Words

Write On!

Author: Leo

  • Dirt: Sermon on the Ground

    I Love Dirt! Even when poor, bland, dusty gray,
    malnourished with no visible creatures crawling,
    it is striving, maneuvering, clawing for sustenance
    which we humanoids doltishly claim---and destroy  
    as ours in our ignorance of life's cycles and needs.

    Dirt life will survive. Microbes are the living flow
    with an innate Atlas persistence stronger than ours,
    a will to live, to build by devouring---then sharing
    a bite here, a bite there, yielding a crunch to savor
    for them and for us; a taste of hope on craving lips.

    A persistence of billions of living, moving lives
    flow unseen by our minds and eyes, self-duped to  
    cherish only ourselves, not Archaea, Bacteria, Fungi,
    Virus, Protists or any of those "creepy nasty things"
    which are our true Creators, Sustainers and only Hope.

  • My Song

    Redbird on waxleaf privet branch calls 
as he has a billion times past; enticing.
Cheer--cheer--cheer--pretty--pretty 
we mimic, but what is he really saying;

mere yakking, indoctrination, concert
or berating, teasing, making fun of me
as I sit in my closed windowed-box 
feeling belittled for my lack of a song?

Swaying leaves, twitching penumbra,
cast by light through my window, dance
upon my dull blue wall to an ancient
choral refrain. Even leaf-light has a song!

What is my song? I don't know the words,
the rhythm, the rhyme, the point of worth.
Was the first song a mere utterance of awe; 
wonderment in the presence of sunlight. 

"Ah! Ah!" will be my song! I sing to the leaves
 and they freeze for just an instant to listen.
Then, crackling into brilliant light slivers,
they resume their own soft, dancing song.

  • I saw an eagle today

    I saw an eagle today; not on the nest web-cam
I check daily now, but soaring an invisible draft,
circling our neighborhood, rising, tipping down,
gliding to a near red oak limb revealing in glinting 
light unique white “bald” head, tail and demeanor.

With apt aplomb he dismissed two raucous crow's
rantings as they stomped and strutted near limbs.
Three swipes of his yellow, hooked beak against
his supporting limb and the cursing duo quickly
took note, lifting, darting west “as the crow flies”

leaving only me and Fuzz to stare; bear witness.
Ditch-stink charmed Fuzz; I was in awe alone.
Did eagle give me a nod as he glanced my way,
arching huge wings for a forward, lifting jump,
fanning white, tail-feathers in silent ascension?

It seemed to me, there was a mutual greeting; 
respect hoped for, valued, but not demanded.
I would have given a salute if I did such things.
We have hope; faith in ultimate good we clutch
as a faultless anthem, sang softly, only in sky.

afterstanza:
Now, another year has flown passed that red oak
and I still check out that empty January grey limb.
Awe has waned, Fuzz limps and a question remains,
only now acknowledged, a yellow beak ripping me:
Are there really only Predators and Prey and which....

  • Stump Buried 40 Years Ago

    Armillaria tabescens

    Forty-odd years, a smidge of time to fungi;
its hidden place and past just now revealed:

a gentle sinking of soil, a couple feet across,
and just overnight a magical cluster has risen.

From the depression, Armillaria tabescens
ascends in pale ochres and soft red-browns,

honey mushrooms, to seek and tease light,
and us, for two or three days at most before

melting back to a bioluminescence world
and the long forgotten, nourishing stump 

devoured and reincarnated in their galaxy 
of patient life and humming green light.

  • Beauty Is The Line

    Beauty is the line;
the delineation, the conformation,
the defining from the tumult of the scene.
Beauty is defined.

Beauty is what is lusted for.
Beauty is what is never obtained
for the line is changed by the taking.

Beauty is not virtue.
Beauty is the line of the bowed head
and cupped hands in the presence of virtue.

Beauty is an ugly word.
Say it. It has been destroyed for us, by us;
its connotations pimped, fouled.

Sensuous is the line.
Say it! Is it not ....beautiful? Ha! Ha!
Feel the lines your lips define. Say it!

Sensuous is the word
that defines the line; the inner line
from upper thigh to Medial Malleolus.

Sensuous are the lines
that define receding, undulating ridges
falling away from green to blue to gray mist.

Sensuous is the line.
Sensuous is the line by what it defines.
Sensuous is the line

  • The Avon Lady: August 1955

    She would appear way down our dirt road
at the turn-off, leaving a quarter mile more
to walk to our house; ample time to run, get
mother and for her to get her saved change,
put away weekly in her left dresser-drawer.
Momma! Momma! The Avon Lady’s coming!

Lugging two big black satchels, yanked her
arms down, rounded shoulders, trudged her
gait, but she never wavered, never stopped. 
Her long dresses, dark, austere; dark as those
high-tops and thick, opaque wrinkled hose 
amazed a near-naked kid in steamy, white air. 

I never saw any evidence of the woman-things
she sold on her face or arms of weathered skin
or her unadorned, piercing…..unblinking eyes.
Her brimmed straw-hat sprinkled her plainness
with points of white light, seemingly, seeping 
from within, bathing her existence  in radiance.

  • Sonnet: writing

    
It was a fear of failing, forced to face
the truth so blithely drown by hiding dreams
in days and tossing nights that held my place
in time, banality, or so, it seemed.
Always the thought was there: to write, release
the only thing I owned uniquely mine;
my take, but excuses would never cease
to take their toll; depleting pride and time.
But age at last with fingers raised to take
a pulse along my neck with icy tips
on wrinkled skin did startle me awake;
so now, alone for hours with moving lips,
I sit composing verse and smile and fret
and curse, but never do I feel regret.

  • never be a LT candidat e

    never 
    a strange belittled concept usually
    kicked aside ignored as if never uttered
    a misunderstanding a muttered hasty response
    oh yes I know but things have changed 
    we must reassess our priorities change gears
    a typo inserted hurriedly as he stood reciting
    brusquely dismissing from behind his mask
    attempted input the numbers the meld score
    will tell us more in two weeks typing inserting  
    you in the forever known never to be removed
     at his squeaky mobile lectern he pushed
    to his next tiny room off his tiny hallway
    bumping clunking denting cheap door facings
    his blue plaid stefano ricci shirt unimpeded  
    by lab coat the brightest thing in the building
    on the street in the city in the tri-state area
    I will never read that line to you as written
    from patient education and instructions section
    of pages pushed to us as I pushed your chair
    bumping tiny room walls off the tiny hallway
    he too hurried a coward to say never to our faces
    never be a LT candidat e
     the e left to dangl e ther e
    never to be corrected
    alon
    e


  • Brush And Comb

    




    

    When the first thing she said was,
    




    They have stolen my brush and comb!
    




    I knew our conversation was doomed.
    




    Take some of my money and buy me
    




    a brush and comb! Bring them to me!
    




    




    




    Tell a nurse. She’ll find them, I advise,
    




    still smiling passed suppressed dread. 
    




    They won’t! She retorted without doubt.
    




    Let me talk to a nurse; they will help you.  
    




    No! Nurse! Nurse! Hang up this phone!
    




    




    That was my first rejection by mom
    




    in seventy-odd remembered years.
    




    We have fought but never forsaken,
    




    never slammed doors or walked away.
    




    It stung; another prick in a sad day.
    




    




    You can’t reason with schizophrenia.
    




    Lord knows, I use to try and always
    




    suffered defeat; not defeat, suffered
    




    nasty instances of realization, knowing
    




    that I, too, was one of her Satanic Liars!
    




    




    Was I too fast to dismiss her claim?
    




    Perhaps, I’m the one without knowing.
    




    I’ve worn my twenty year old Corona
    




    cap for three days, even in the house!
    




    I need to wash, brush and comb my hair.
    




    

    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Don’t Blame Me, Blame Bug!
    
			
    

    Hercules beetle
    




    Every guy has to have his Eve; gal too, her Adam.
If not an actual mortal, a blemish to blame; given, 
no, inserted undetectably and inoperably by God!
"God made me do it: I had a really, really bad day!"