a Peace of Christmas morning

Christmas morning,
nearing six,
the moon just retired.
Curled on the corner of the couch,
under the copper lamp light,
books piled on the left arm,
Smokey is nestled on my right,
between outstretched toes,
pads touching mine,
his heavy head propped on my
soul, with a deep sigh,
i am alone
writing
in front of the Christmas tree,
whose moments are numbered-
alee, the chimes try to carol outside
a pine candle cheerfully flickers,
heavy breaths are carried down the hall...
and I remember
how many books I've read this year
and the fathoms I've learned
beyond measure.
I am
more aware-
of myself.
I am getting somewhere-
besides the moral of the story
or simply The End.
I have found peace
and puzzled in pleasure
over moments
with words as pieces,
like these,
gathering beloved dearly
to day.





Image By Lars Jacob for Ristesson [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Reading while waiting the world turns the page

The boy, who is 17, is dragging

a rolling backpack and wearing a red beanie

which covers his sensitive ears that purposefully cusp

thick rectangle glasses held by a strap around the back.

It is Friday, before the Winter break at the local highschool.

I was told the school brought snow to the quad-

and it is sunny, 70 degrees and the ocean is silver on the skyline.

It must not be real snow.

The boy, who is not soon to be a man,

wears running pants, is pigeon toed and shuffles on the sidewalk

sideways as fast as he can drag his backpack and hunched frame along.

He is covered in puffy white foam,

his arms, his butt, his back, like he just jumped out

of the bath, but is trying to get out of himself.

Marching off beat, planting crowded feet down the sidewalk, stomping

I hear-faintly-people scream, Zachary, Zachary, come back here! Zack-get back-

She is late, she is late she's LATE! is all he says

Over and over he chants while rocking himself righteous.

The uniformed school guard is now on his walkie, beeping, Over,

while he smiles wide at him, offering him a treat, but he does not bite

into candy from strangers.

Others come running and reprimanding,

fingers drawn, arms cocked.

She's late, she's late, she's never supposed to be this late!

He flings his words at them,

soaps flies like spit.

He is cursing at her in his way.

But how could she know that there was no snow

They lied, he’ll say.

which is why he was early today

but she was probably going to be late anyway. 

Composed 12/19/15.

Image credit By U.S. Air Force photo/Ken Wright/Released [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

My lips are sealed

Because I liked to kiss the boys,
you used to say.
And from what he saw,
that sounds true.
Lack of will power, I say
don't deny when desire strikes.
No, they did not push my button,
or make it near my neck.
And it wouldn't matter who
happened to be throwing their meat
at me, pelvis, chest, seeking breasts.
Hot syrup breath and drizzling skin,
I'd be right there,
half naked myself, ripe peachy skin
swollen lips and wild half
closed black eyes, my body swinging
to feel itself touch outside.

This is how I know hypnotists are real,
and trances, a quarter a twenty due
to inflation, like the facts, you see.
Those musicians that are reckless
with their radio rape and power
over women, tossing bass under lusty lines
that speak to somewhere primitive.
Women respond in a certain throbbing way
under disco lights cast in dank dungeons.
A charmer and his pungi,
the venom has been imbibed.

Because I like to kiss the boys, he said
which may be true but sounds like conceit
when I profess it was they who kissed me
first. But he wouldn't dance
(too left deceit)
so he could never completely see
if I kissed them back
and I wish
I never did.





Image By UPI (eBay) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, Rock Hudson & Julie Andrews 1968 film, Darling Lily.

Right as Rain

Most of us know by now

a lie when offered one.

Sometimes we pretend its shiny

and something marvelously new,

like 'you look beautiful today'.

Well, I'm no idiom, 

but if little white ones cause no pain

a lie can feel good and right as rain.

Since Christmas is coming I have stocked up on pine candles

They all said it was dead.
The marks were obvious signs. The color,
bad news. Nothing could be done.
We knew after consulting with the experts
the day was coming,
but it was out there somewhere, solid and waiting,
until that day became today.

Needles glistened red in the sunrise,
the birds stayed away,
yesterday there were thirty crows
don't tell me a bird brains don't know.

Sure its pusy sap has made a mess,
parking under there a last resort,
but the smell and shade worth the week-
ends raking, complaining, venting,
and meditating on the smells.

The gang was all there prepared
to greet its last day the moment it broke,
move it or lose it, officially tagged
no parking here today.

Neighbors gather around like vultures
just outside the attack lines, the cone zone
pacing, bleary eyed.
And some have wheelbarrows
to take pieces of the carcass for themselves.

The orange man in the boom box
bobs and weaves while he makes
his perfect cuts with moving precision.
A chef on deck asea.

They are operating ruthlessly as I write this,
my son still asleep under its bossom soon
mastectomized. The windows are behind
plywood, in case a limb fights back.

Our mailboxes are gone for the day
Christmas is on its way, deliveries delayed.
This is no time for merry anyway.

Fifty feet tall and forty years of giving breath,
gone in a days work of slaughter and toil.

The crane in the sky screeches
as it chokes off major arteries
as a support staff of the savage surgery.

We were hoping for some empathy,
gloves instead is what we get, a slab for the back,
a souvenir, they said.

I'm hunkered down, don't want to look,
honestly I've never had one this big die on me.
I didn't know my breath would be taken instantly,
from piney oxygen deprivation.

When there's a hole, an empty space
in my skyline, I'll know
those mounds, like shallow graves
will mark the place of a time
where a perfect pine used to grow,
one that I called mine,
and the gnomes called home.



*If you have not read already, Before this Pine is Done was composed in tribute to this same deceased tree now resting in heaps.

Top image credit: By Jon Sullivan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Do you have the time? (Haiku)

Did you know the world 

was going to end? Ours? Yes, look

into the mirror.

Image By AlfvanBeem, Prague Astronomical Clock (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Two Together we Gather

Words arrived when we needed them
to see and say, plea and agree, demanding consistency.

Women sought with their eyes, wide in panorama;

Men relied on touch, sensing these were what feelings felt like.

Fire forged us from animals into sentient shapes.

Sharing knowledge and words, we found each other, 
warm and understanding, under what we stand for.

They will hunt for us, they will gather for us, we will dwell 

Together. To gather round

the fire, together around the light of desire, gathering aglow, 
or rathering not to know what It is 
It defines Us, We Are verbs, an assemblage, a clan, we plan, 
dream of Time, live in the past.

To bring, to arrive, going and going to go.
To gather, to collect, to pick up, two scoop, too yield, to concede, two agree to a degree, too cull, to sort by inference and deduction,

lighter, an objective gathering.

Just sew, we make something new

pucker up, drawn in to each other, folded over and plaited, 
by book and by sea on a fellow ship.

Elementary applications, melting sand transparently, forging steel inherently buried in itself, gleaning with muster,

the speed in which it grows, a group, a gainsay, a mish-mash, an array of We

These and agrees, those oppose those,
Clarity, Consistency and Redundancy 
was never so necessary or honored 
in collective perspective: soundsthesame “WeareOnelappingoverWearenOnestrongertogetherareWenot”

The power of We

                       over the One

Is the difference of disbursement over displacement, 
laying it out, spread thin, barely enough to go a round and around a gain.
This Time for you. This Time for me. We may or may not agree. 
We both name what we see as it is to be true, because we said so. 

This is what I’ve gathered so far.






Image By Mervyn Peake Glass Blowers Gathering (1943) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.