how many lovers
have traded their pretty lies
beneath your lustre
Quotes
The Lotus Eaters (revised)
we are become as lotus eaters
in which our suffered graces
are numbed to true sensation,
force fed with base esthesis.
Imprisoned by unreal desires
blind to the world around
behind walls of false design
shackled hostage bound.
Dare we look at all beyond
that which is placed before us
for in searching is release
from the bland anonymous.
We are no longer who we were
devolved as much as lost today
where once the world had bloomed with sweet perfume
here now the lotus eaters play.
Tears
loud the angels wept
yet the tears nobody heard
blessed the temple floor
Stones
we are river stones
weathered by the passing storms
to shine come the sun
Burn
although fair written
he set his verses afire
to burn as his heart
River
I miss my river
grey though she
ebbs and flows
slowly lapping
with a kind
of resignation
as she dwells
upon her glories
past and famed
but still
I miss her sounds
her accent rare
and noises off
banks north and south
the songs she sang
and those not sung,
her lack of airs
despite her graces
which other
grander courses
of well renown
present, these
only make her
feel right
and me feel right
in turn
First Breaths
In choral turns their pleas are heard
the weary finch, the proud blackbird
round robin bold, shy hatch and hen
a starling insecure, and wren
from song to song and tree to tree
no ear can match this symphony
nor pen, nor pipe or soft tapped string
could hope to vie with feathered things.
Unfinished Birdsong
the throstle wakes
as so must I it seems
her song invades
yet not disturbs my dreams
there may be clouds
uncertain in the dawn
yet the song thrush
seems to minds not
and greets the coming morn,
but will her lover
duet to her cries
soulful from the barest trees
beneath these youngest skies
or has the night before them
driven death’s dark veil
between her plaintive arias
sung sweet to no avail.
Twilight’s Edge
twilight descends
quick and steel cold
as a slipped blade
upon my throat,
and with its coming
warm blood is shed
as is the passing day.
Bronze
bronze dawn
cast the next days in your light
the winter was molten
and seeks now the crucible
of an early springtime.