Belated Words

Write On!

Tag: poems

  • Abandonment

    The nest, eloquently laid of brittle twigs, holds
    a knitted cup of coffee/color pine needles mingled
    with wispy leaves and lies in the branching Y
    of Pyracantha, framed by Aprils’ white corymbs
    and shielded by the tan brick wall of my home.

    Four blue/gray air-brushed eggs glow a tinge
    of brown speckling. All has been abandoned.
    They lie, lovingly deprived of apprehensions,
    of ever wondering why; what forced their mother
    to be to flee one instinct for another.

    Perhaps, our prying eyes or the cat crouching,
    or the bullying gang of jays flaunting
    their colors; threatening hate crimes.
    Perhaps, it was only a roving eye, a perceived
    greener tree…an inexplicable unease.

  • Gardening 101: Attitude

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    On damaged knees in wet and sweet dark dirt,

    the gardener in his plot mumbles:

    his soul is singing songs of friable decay,

    of tingling life through fingers’ sifting touch.

    .

    He presents his face, unashamed and

    divinity anoints him priest, seer, Adam’s son

    with sacred smudge of sweat and primal dust.

    All joy is not in bloom but in seeding.

  • Moses and the Burning Bush

    An Elysian blunder was how it began;

    a careless spark spewed over heaven’s brim

    and shrubbery was ablaze in heathen/land.

    The worst part was the humorless witness:

    flock-boys were bothersome with time

    to watch and wonder and suspect more.

    Since original fire could not consume…

    merely entice and dazzle and show,

    improvisation was called for, so I AM

    assigned an asinine, too/big quest, enough

    to quiver and quail a shepherd’s lust

    to tell and brag of what he had witnessed.

    We know how that turned out.

  • The Bomb

    I remember a horrid infant;

    a creation of rabid men,

    a concoction of elements

    and process

    devoid of conscience.

    ·

    They thought the riddle was solved:

    ·

    a forfeit of a fraction

    for the good of the whole.

    But the whole was demeaned;

    the part was not expendable;

    they refuse to lie in silence

    as mere charred bone.

  • cold wind day

    The cold wind owned the day.

    Sniggering, sliding icicle ghost

    against my cringing neck,

    he bent me beneath his gray face;

    pale narcissus was humbled,

    hanging face in humility

    at his own audacity

    to dare flaunt with pride.

    Even the audience trees paid homage

    with chins drawn tight to chest

    with a curious tilt of head.

  • The Blissful are Pardoned

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    We walk daily; Fuzz, so ravenously alive,

    reclaiming spots he owned the day before,

    brashly stolen, claimed by a vagabond mutt.

    This was my take at first, his selfishness:

    primal greed.

    Now I see only frantic glee of knowing wafted

    through quivering nostrils scripture enshrined in golden globes

    left to entice on green/grass blades and sticks.

    He wears the mantel of joy reading ecstatic visions;

    cheeks pulsating, pulling in holograms only he can see.

    wonders I can never see….never imagine!

    Fuzz is joyous in his bliss of piss and I

    cursed with crude senses, can only cry for his joy;

    for joy is joy, not to be diminished.

    If he in canine/glee jerks our tether in disregard of me,

    I still can only smile though yanked, drug hard

    from bush to yellow spot of grass and post.

    The blissful are pardoned for thoughtlessness.

  • Ambushed

    Just an old man on a fast, healthful walk,

    I was ambushed on quiet Magnolia Street;

    my assailants, two boys, seven or eight,

    flaunted their plastic guns from their dead yard.

    One sprayed me from the hip, old-gangster style,

    the other, took careful head and chest shots,

    leering at me with deliberate calm.

    Refusing to ordain their murder play,

    the chest/clutching drama/death of feigned pain

    on a twisted face, which they demanded;

    I threw them my pain and a snubbing of

    their killing fields, a dam/you/glare as only

    an old man tired of rote/learning/games can.

    Incessant perforations of the air

    by forced/breathe bullets pursued me far past

    my escape around the corner to Oak.

    Their muddled voicings of derisive taunts

    rent the air for my refusal to die.

  • The Winds Lament

    The leaves are fallen and the wind laments

    their leaving for they mark his passage

    painting visibility on the ethereal.

    My face and ears feel a cold breath

    face/on as our directions collide

    on this sunny yet cold, empty street.

    A chime to my right sings winds intent,

    his hope to fly till the tumult of his birth

    dissipates to calm, allowing him to lie

    and rest quietly as a wreath on a grave.

  • Yellowstone: 1989

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    Bison moseyed nonchalantly huge

    among our tents, hushing with awe,

    on their way down to the Yellowstone

    to drink in saffron, morning light.

    The kids, dumbstruck, pointed in glee

    as one mountainous beast halted

    and glared; signing with oracle eyes:

    “Today I will be your token beast.

    Tomorrow you will be mine; locked

    in amber, stone and layered time.

     

    I will hoove your useless remains;

    eating grasses from cranial urns 

    recalling nothing of your holocaust.”

    Can beast, once a coveted commodity

    slaughtered for trophy, flesh or skin,

    mimic disdain? I know I saw it there.

    Guilt mandates we heap self-accolades

    for our forbearance against a token few

    free, yet still, goods for our pleasure.

    Will we be allotted a token few to roam?

  • Rose Box

    Oak and Cedar Box

    Natural, unstained, just shaped by my hand;

    every so gently, my fingers caress

    your lustrous, polished surfaces.

    Is it your innate beauty I cherish,

    or my own creation I so admire?