Wild Sorrow

Wild sorrow, exile,

you grow in the dense thicket

ripe with thorns. 

Prickly leaves are yours,

hanging heavy with

all the loves ever loved alone,

all the words never uttered,

pangs of longing

useless to the busy world,

a world unsuspecting

of the million secret deaths within

caused by wild sorrow

and its piercing, untamed fruit,

the thorn.

The Sweet Diana

By love begotten 

By love forgotten 

The way of broken dreams 

With tears besodden 

By pain downtrodden 

Fame isn't what it seems.

The Beggar and The Privileged

The terror of new day,

laced with abandonment,

hope burned to a crisp,

my outstretched hand

just another piece of junk --

I try to rise

with the sun.  

The world lies,

giving a flush of welcome 

and then,

the boot --

all the crueler for memory of

first sweetness. 

So, before you speak to me

of the lofty and the spiritual,

please be sure that it was not

the heel of your boot

which already smashed

my hand.

A Synchrony Apart

Vision stacked in layers,

a plural "I," or "we" -- 

the many phases,

meshed or solo,

of multiplicity.

They Made Me Do It

Girl scout cookies,

chocolate peppermint, fair,

once again you have captured us

in your lair . . . . . 

Smooth-coated brown

in plastic wrap,

one column plundered --

alas, a huge gap!  

And now a new gap

to join the first -- 

two minutes' pillage

by "yours truly" . . . 

the worst.

Sedative

They say softly,

with perfect diction

and ineffable sweetness,

"I have discovered my own way

to navigate God,"

voices smooth as butter,

bodies flowing with every movement,

toned,

graceful,

malleable . . .

and heads nod "yes" . . .

but somewhere

in the set of the chin

beneath

the softness, the sweetness,

and the fluidity of all that shows

lies something hard,

cold,

unyielding,

tensed like a coiled

snake

ready to strike.

Mentor

There was a mentor,

influence felt, not heard,

who listened to the lilt of the word,

just receiving. 

No degrees had he,

but a knowing of a kind

that can take words

or leave them,

burn through them

or seize them,

with reckless precision

of mind. 

Though he go a-seeking

new verse to till,

"mentor" he will remain

still.

Poem

Relevance

gone mad with art,

bemusing in form,

light for its weight,

tune with no music,

sound waiting to be made

whether uttered

or not.

Spring Blessing

An intoxicating fragrance

drifts over my window sill,

angels bearing Heaven's scent

perfuming yonder hill.

Mind to Mind

A friend of the mind --

a different kind --

refreshing as a breeze

which deftly sweeps debris aside

and gives truth room to breathe.

Like a Donkey

There is a common dialogue
protocol
guaranteed to maintain
social locks and doors,
and she follows it --
like a bemused donkey
trailing its master --
careful to skim only the surface
and barely rattle the doorknobs . . .
for the code is very particular
about what not to touch.
Perhaps this is why
so many conversations
leaving her pining
for a dilapidated barn
smelling frankly of
hay and manure.

Author, Found

Perhaps you will read me at coffee cup's bottom

or on the print of an old tin can

Perhaps you will read me in the daily news

or in tales of a foreign land

Perhaps you will read me in Rachmaninoff's

visceral sounds swirling 'round your head

engulfing you in feelings

you'd long given up for dead

Perhaps you will read me only

when my poetry is done

and packed away in dusty trunk

'neath window's setting sun.

Speed of Light

Reality knocks hard and fast

and won't be overcome

by taking flight or crouching low --

blind running from the sun.

Something Burning

There is an anger that burns

white-hot, with a smile,

placidly sizzling

all the while,

coolly oblivious

to its own being,

heating up

and still not seeing

its own power;

without shame,

focused on

itself and gain

of this or that,

while never moved

to step outside of

its own groove;

others' pain being

interesting,

but not enough reason

to do a thing

to empathize

or soothe a soul --

apathy scalding,

anger's toll.

Growing Pains

The hardest thing after writing, it seems,

is to let a poem hang,

just hang there on the line . . .

waiting  . . . waiting hard to be read . . .

and sometimes it hurts,

hurts far too much,

to see it hanging there;

and I must seize back my poems --

mine!  all mine!  please don't hurt them! --

but, then, how does one hurt a poem?

Ah,

one fails to read it!

So, although it hurts,

I put the poems back . . .

back . . . back into view,

because I see

(and I've seen this before but then I've forgotten)

that poems live, breathe, and sing

to be read!

And I understand now that my poems,

like children whom we cannot spare all suffering

and struggle in life,

are actually willing

to wait.