As the crow flies

On still days

with drooping flags

and contented leaves

Sounds somehow soaked in

between the crevices

of broad daylight

I sit as still as my body

Allows

shuffling feathers

a crow passes by 

my hair

Lifts

and the clouds tip-toe 

Along the rounded horizon 

I don't see any

Evidence of spin

and even while held down 

in place and time

I feel the thousand 

mile-per-hour trajectory

Of every thing 

and cannot help

but try to follow

Which way

it all goes.

Painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela, ' Boy and a crow' c. 1884 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

What lies ahead

Sun lifting the veil of purple sky-

might bronze forge strength

pungent as the turned dirt?

Thirsting through 

exposition, hide and seek,

those are lost and winding back 

around-

those that reap

shall be held against the light

shall cast atonement into the shadows-

thou shalt be measured against the day.

All ways an arm's length

a way-in every direction

aimed 

this focus spares no details 

no enunciation of echoes

when molding bodies

come to day with arsenals

of color intended to define us

by just what they had

known and felt 

against all alchemy

made from the excesses,

there was the sky 

with directions. 

Painting by Maksymilian Gierymski c. 1869 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Best Bend Forward

By bend and nose
by eyes and toes

we can only
go a head
of ourselves
instead

of looking up
stopping to stoop
and smell a beauty
that eyes cannot spell

what others don't see
what we cannot tell
about the roses in your past
kneeling eyes downcast

By not being Here
By smelling your own Fear.



Image of painting by John William Waterhouse [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, The Soul of a Rose, 1908.