Belated Words

Write On!

Tag: poetry

  • 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.

  • 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

    1-10-11 084

    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.

  • 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?

  • Leaves

    Should I be raking leaves; they’re piling up?

    My yard sleeps beneath a saddle-brown snow

    complete with two/foot drifts snug around shrubs.

    The paths and spent flowers seem content though,

    resting without pressure to be well-groomed.

    My eyes tell me this without judgment of

    their own; leaving the decision for me.

    Taking my cue from nature, I chose to

    lie fallow and rest beneath a rich snow.

  • Fawn

    Along the bank of a singing creek

    drawn crouching beneath tangled laurel

    to a sandy cove by a sweet stench,

    I found a fawn, awhile dead, untouched,

    inches from the water’s edge.

    Her pliant, serene/cervine body lay melting

    molecule by molecule      returning      ascending

    and her soul held wake above      wafting

    among lustrous white laurel blossoms.

  • Squirrel Narrative

    Spiraling up and up with scratching speed,
    the squirrels pursued each other around
    the rough barked pine faster than my eyes could shift.

    I lost them in white sky glare and tangled
    needle mass; raucously harsh, screeching calls,
    marked them before their leap to a neighbor oak.

    The smaller fell, spread-eagle in air;
    missed! I thought, but spasms of tail/tick-tock
    and tendon/claw snagged a limb-tip easing
    his plummeting fall to stronger growth.

    Then, daring pursuit, the parent raced on,
    intent on schooling squirrel ways without respite;
    tree to tree with chattering leaps of faith.

    From limb to power line the parent jumped
    beckoning the smaller to follow fast; the pupil,
    leaping, slipped, then swung upright and froze:
    the taut wire of risk lay suddenly clear
    in the vastness of white opened air.

    Father/mother? chastised hesitance with
    warnings of dark omnipresent beast,
    and ran the unforgiving wire quickly away.

    The rodent/child, doubt crushed, wavered and fell,
    clawing apathetic air to the street
    where he lay and twice twitched, perhaps with thoughts
    of soft/leaf nest and of drinking water.

  • Bird Haiku

    Grackle

    Brazen hundreds flaunt

    their stuff, screaming their presence;

    conquering the trees.

    •

    Bluejay

    Unsympathetic;

    reigning, brassy-blue diva

    of the canopy.

    •

    Bluebird

    The blue of God’s eyes;

    with cheek-blushed breast, you flutter

    in your dainty bath.

    •

    Crow

    Black hole against soft

    sky blue as boy-baby blue;

    harsh as a night scream.

    •

    Mourning Dove

    Flushed from brush in twos;

    rattling chortles of wings lift

    them to lowest limbs.

    They call in soft glee.

    Mistaken for sad laments,

     their calls haunt our days.

    Skeptical of bliss;

     we refuse to hear pure joy

    of a gleeful heart.