Summer times

Some days smell like

Freedom.

I was with a bad (hu)man for

Far too long.

Often heated,

Bad habits, scarring and some

Evil-

Bloody mess...

Honest, my guts

torn asunder 

then more

Limbo, a sense of 

Death...

Dante,

One could say-

Then

In some particular way

the sun felt extra good today,

Felt my skin thirsting and gulping

every atom, warm and

Yum...

Like a perfectly ripe peach 

cannot be devoured without a

Smile.

Pure and True.

Each peach- the same and

Anew-

Even though, simplified

Into

As above, so it is

Below. 

To grow or die

this time around

the Sun. 

. 

Painting by William Mason Brown (1828-1898), 'Peaches on a White Plate' c. 1880 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Draw out

It must have been
one of those crossroads
that Dante found too dark
to penetrate
and I find myself
sinking
to the depths
of Tarot,
whereby a spark may be
cast,
only one strike,
like sipping one toe into the
Inferno
and you know
I drew;
The Emporer, The Hermit, The Lovers,
The Devil
and Strength.

There is something
strait-forward about
a cross, a sword, empty cups,
perhaps
the pathway, and a Virgil,
that may say
directions,
like selections
when lain, like steps
a hand
is dealt and there lies
choice,
namely,
to forget
The Fool.



Artwork by Dante Gabriel Rossetti [Public domain].

Amore di sé

Atop the purple pale predawn sky
stirred my spirit to unrest
Arose to white worlds winking
afar and apart were we
but heavenly orbs lined up
in a row
Tho all alone at this timid time
watched, I was, enrapt in
warm thirsty waves of want
and shapeless yearning to be-
come drown in the love sent to
me in lights that others call
empty space.


Image by By Alice Boughton, Dawn (1909) (Camera Work, No 26, 1909) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

I come bearing water

I need not see to believe-
this presence of Ganymede.
We were led to learn,
our blue planet Earth-
was alone soaking in saltwater.

But you showed yourself-
Ganymede.

I rose early too, like those stargazers,
eager to see what they wanted us to believe
was a Blood Moon-
but she was just blushing,
rosy from her fullness.

Like Eos at Dawn,
there you were again,
in the company of dead poets,
attending the school of contemplation.

Rising first, in rings around dreams,
taking lullaby swings, at gravity-
Who thinks nobody is looking-
thirsting for Truth.

Fixing the future, diving into their divinity,
stuck swimming in the stars;
unable to reconcile, to beguile or even manage
a simple smile to reconcile but choose denial,
Ganymede.

Composed 5/21/15.

Image By NASA/JPL (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02278) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Ganymede from Voyager 1, March 1979.

Follow the Trail

The long

   and wind-

ing road where

  a river runs

    through this Place.

      My nest-my shelter…

        A bough heavy with its

         Burden throwing weight

           under -fractured –arms-bends

          splitting branches and hairs.

         Shedding, peeling, bleeding

        New growth smooth raw

      and glowing in vibrant appearance

     of new buried in the piles, behind the

    Brook, between the pulpy sheets in the

    Pillared fortress of my dark wood. Followed

   by History, taunted under timber, mossy muffled

  movements like the pumas pads, stalking, following

 His instinct upwind of fragile deer quaking in the breeze.

Led innocently but not blind by the familial scent which

Rushes past as white noise……………

The rivers running away in daily rush,

  the commute of clear water swelling

   and surging. Overflows with dripping

    anticipation, a communion-yet lingering

      all ways, touching baptismal branches,

       alone with the alchemy

        tossed in the leafy mix, where lights

         refraction concentrates and showers,

          beaming and bemoaning,

           the straightforward path

             Toward the new season,

              rooted in reason,

               salt over the shoulder,

                tears condense.

                 No turning back!

                  Abandon All Pride!

                    Mists obscure all distinction

                     of form-that is confidence-

                      The kiss of order, standing up 

                       to reason gushing with fortitude

                         in the flow of perspiring possibility.

                          Down long halls lined in

                           mirrored repetition,  rhetorical echoes

                            only bounce; bouncing rhetoric in repetition

                              mirroring echoes  the eagle’s fading scream,

                               A crier over town, sad jays bicker greedily 

                                gathering, stealing and mocking in their way 

                                    out of the thicket of things. Wandering wearily,

                                      coming to corners where speckled rocks

                                          from brooks and granites gain

                                            cowering recluse, a charging cavalier

                                               out of the mist. The berth anew, bewildered

                                                  by this liquid leariness.

                                                     Not a place to sea the source etched

                                                      in deep groves. Matters not of maps;

                                                        forecasted, charted,  re-routing, and

                                                          never doubting.

                                                            Blind faith, la selva obscura,

                                                             branches of beliefs stretching,

                                                               growing isms opening buds,

                                                                revealing tips of truth.

                                                                  From: The Past

                                                                    To: The Present

                                                                     A sacrificial lamb

                                                                      sheared of

                                                                        symbolic strength

                                                                          covering paths of tortuous trails         

                                                                           dead ends trap and pray

                                                                            begging of another way

                                                                              boughs for none bending astray

                                                                               beckoning behind knotty burl

                                                                                snarled in growing, tread softly on shed

                                                                                  skin exposing the elements

                                                                                   Aware of wind, heightened

                                                                                    yet heedless of escape, leave in fear

                                                                                     bursting bold and brazen

                                                                                       The eternal flame

                                                                                         Embers, never forgetting

                                                                                          pulsing vein, rhythmic, infinite

                                                                                            bleeding, gushing forth,

                                                                                              in the current forward motion

                                                                                                breathing the days away

                                                                                                  In the middle of the grove

                                                                                                    downstream and deeper

                                                                                                     drowning in the thick
                                                                                                        Redwood Forest

"There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more." -Lord Byron

Feature image (1st) by Ilya Repin (1844-1930) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Second image, Redwood Forest "Fall Creek"