Poetry
I stand on starkness stretching beyond me At the horizon stands a wall of white Light is lashing out but I try to see It glares around, above, below, so bright I place my hand to shield my eyes to scan My heartbeat tells of goring and of fear Find red on snow to tell me where it ran I hear a moan and know the horns are near I shout and point my spear at the boulder carried by the frost giant long…
The morning star crashed down upon the earth From the glowing crater the burning angel stood and raised their head and cast their eyes towards the heavens coveting the throne up there in pain All above from horizon to horizon stretched the ruddy dome For the apes had banned the night drowned it in a sea of light until they blotted out the stars themselves The angel prepared to storm the sky But…
1. Existence We strayed into the void too high to keep direction. Weight of stars has pulled us out Our ship has shifted into unknown deep We're so far beyond any track or route I remember home, it's the fireplace, the vital center point, the light, the sun Where I'd met the shape of your eyes, your face on that third world where we had once begun We spiraled in crescendo of ascent…
We think first then our hands form We mold the clay to our will and we bend the metal to our imagined shape So when we behold the formed that far exceeds our skill to make we see greater hands and further thought But what furnace and what hammer wrought all that lives and why? Who dared by what art? We stood in awe of one like us, beyond But then in distant archipelagos, and deeper rocks and in…
The rubble of a building among the resting "Urban renewal" they said A face and perhaps a soul restored to youth by surgeons; more urban renewal Also the nine strata of Troy piled upon each other into a mound Troy VI: Achilles rose in vengeance to his fall A dead Osiris awakens the seed of Horus in Isis' womb Jesus himself on the back of a phoenix rising from its ashen tomb Prometheus'…
On Earth before us, birds flew And flowers bloomed And there was a chitter among the leaves And thundered steps of herds across the plains And no one kept beasts as cattle No one milked them They went unguarded by us No one gathered crops to be stored away in granaries for hungry days Before us, peace reigned No soldiers waging wars on battlefields No one to enslave When we came to Earth we…
I haven't seen your face in a while and I thought I had not missed it but then I thought of the curves of its smile and how your eyes are laughter I drown into And then I got up and walked the path to your house, as I had done so many times before and I found myself standing in front of your door knowing it was not yours anymore And that I was alone I haven't seen your face in a while…
The city is the forest now where birds fly and plants ascend I rise to birdsong and blooms Yet our mighty works don't crumble This is not the afterworld Not the fall and not a lonely place At the shoreline where the cities stand this is a world of teeming billions who let you be and care and thrive The mighty rivers flow with song of beast among the leaves of trees I smell the scent of after…
I put the seed in soil and nurse it on and green, a tiny stalk, so slowly grows Yet flowers die; a burst, then broken dawn So brief a life, so soon forever closed A splash of color bright with paint will stay and flowers won't; and yet I grow them still Because a song for just a moment played is sweet, a shorter dance enhances thrill So bud: erupt into a glorious bloom Just moments, brief…
I opened up my eyes in the middle of the night In the sea of dreams I found a port I saw the moon amongst the racing clouds in this centre point of time In what distant deeps did my dreams reside? Nothing is the way it seems I hear the wind in rustling leaves Amidst the trees, two piercing points of light I blink in bilateral confusion I broke the surface of the waves, but to no sun On the fragile…
In dit land van ontmoetende rivieren, op de vlakte van het alluvium tussen velden met graan, eerst gezaaid stond een vrouw, hand boven haar ogen kijkend naar de karavaan die voorbij trok. Ossen trekken karren vol gerst, hoog gestapeld en hun houten wielen waren nieuw. Ze zag dat een schilfer ontbrak aan haar nog gave pot en ging door met vullen. Toen het duister de horizon tintte ging ze naar de…
We set the place: the trackless void of space We crossed the stellar distance - outward bound The station Happenstance, a forward base constructed long ago, abandoned, found Its systems old, obscure, and hard to read Some hands, or tendrils, teeth or trunks now lost they weaved machines, and walls were grown from seed They left it all exposed to barren frost Its makers gone, we made it home to us…
In this land where the rivers met on the plains of alluvium among the fields of grain, first planted a woman stood, hand over eyes watching traders passing by. Oxen pull carts piled high with barley and their wooden wheels were new. She saw her still sound pot missed a chip and kept filling it. When the sunset tinted she went to the city of walls climbed onto the roof of the common house then…
Strike a chord on a sunbeam We begin to play Listen, listen to our lament In the east the killing fields of yellow sun and skies so blue Bold resistance a surprise Blood and darkness spent Listen, listen to this sound In the middle of the land ships sink and take breaths away To our darkness we are bound Takes my breath away Listen, listen in on our every word It's for the children,…
I walked through streets paved with cobblestones It was dusk, and the scent of spring was in the air Pause to find my way among these houses bent by centuries I am to see a man about a book that's stumbling slowly through the age when they were built, and who lived here then No. This book is in fact stopped well before its end Becalmed in front of the coastline of the unknown that I never…
The sun beats down upon this world Light drowning in an ocean of trees which spreads from shore to shore Beasts had risen from the sea before Now one rests on the leaf of a scale tree while an early riser flies by flapping translucent wings Horse tails reach high and soak up sunlight The trunks fall, with age, down, onto each other and they sink slowly, into the moist ground (Later to be compacted…
Winter nights are long strung together Perhaps a word of daylight spoken There's little sunshine in this weather If the day's gloom was even broken But then you step into the crisp night You brave the cold for some chore perhaps Wrapped by a coat and there's little light You look up and feel yourself collapse For now the covering clouds have lifted You breathe out and far beyond…
Behold the man who stepped onto the stage and rocked the underfoot until it cracked We hear about his words, his feet, his rage That to this world he brought what it had lacked He was a leader crownless, still so veiled A king to pull the empire down for us Alive, not stopped, and buried not, not nailed Please come and eat the bread; not treasonous He comes to tend the flesh that aches,…
When gods had left the earth they left it dark No light in the trees -- no light but some stars where they touched the sky and left their godly mark earth they touched too; she still carries their scars We sat; we heard some faint call in the night the stars a distant glimmer in our eyes We heard the wolves howl; we cowered in fright at the horizon we saw the moon rise One of us rose; a shape…
into both pools I fall into wells of tears into mirrors dark distorted diffracted reported redacted apported distracted receding refracted at the bottom I find an image of the fallen in you I find eye eye finds me Notes I wrote this poem perhaps in 2023.
He is the man, the man who has it all He's smarter, knows it all, and so deserving No fear, clear eyes, untamed, he hears the call What he doesn't know isn't worth preserving There's nothing he cannot grasp and gain For him no rules or regulations He casts off his fetters and his chain And now he throws the wildest accusations In truth his judgement stands and brooks no judge…
The horizon cracked from side to side They scoured the continent with a lash Broken, ashes, fiery clashes The locomotive howled into the gloom The whip encroached, we tried to hide Boots came knocking on my door that night By the rhythmic rocking of a train I was taken through, away, uprooted They need me feeding their machine of fright We were flesh and spinning gears we ground, grind from meal…
So cold waves now crash against the shore A rock still stands in surf, defying spray It's dusk today, wind from winter's core The breaking sun just spat a final ray Alone in the dark a rock is rushing on Forged primeval, still, of grit and ice The sunlight cracks the shell, a breaking dawn A sword stands forth, and through the sky a slice This is our house and it is built on clay Just…
I saw a road It was long and winding twists and turns forever more and on my back a sack a heavy load Such a road! Heavy grew my feet Warily I stood there and gazed Truly, grew more and more amazed Stepping on this road didn't seem clever To wit: A storm in the sky My umbrella was leaky That traffic light there was red forever Through a city in a maze of alleys so dark The street lights were…
I am light light as a feather and as bright as a peacock's I shine this world is mine I live in this one not in the next but I can imagine and if I want to ten thousand more Being light is a dance of balance and dreams thought and emotion woven together without break, without seams I am my own equilibrium my own balance, my own light Feet planted on my own foundation I am a fool, I am folly…
forest draped they were with bands of green bald gray heads white-capped the mountains loomed and from the pass below I hear a distant clamor crimson draped they were with white tusks bald gray shapes saddle-capped great beasts of war I'd never seen before many men in armor are passing through this pass from the high green fields I watch them the beasts but dots and many men so small south…
I stand in the sunset Where light once sat now darkness takes my face Pockmarked, cold and stark Breathe and feel the dark Stand in the midnight Stand here with me Stars Like pinpricks in the cosmic fold I wrap the dark; a cloak around me My old blue companion An ocean across and life There is no darkness There is no darkness, anywhere My face is only in shadows I wait for the sickle So you can…
So bright, wise Pandora was gifted in all ways As a woman maligned as they did in those days Now we are not so blind and should you disagree I'll explode in fury You can't say that to me We are better, you see Our own judge and jury Respect is our aura Pandora had a jar full of evil, they say Again that was a lie They are our own flaws Out flies all that is ill causing wound after wound…