Monday, September 23, 2013

Hands of Clay



Hands of Clay



Labyrinthine hollows swirling freely through unformed clay

Slithering, slipping , moving down

And tossed away.



Tunneling blindly through the darkness

Searching for that perfect state

Hands against the warm fluid

Disappearing, releasing fate.



Water, an intermediary between this organic bond

This terra incognita slowly folding into a tight mound

I am the alchemist of my own single vision of today

Like an injured pigeon, hands cup clay.



Night comes, the wheel is placed away

Covered neatly to sleep

As your own body`s quiet firmness

Moves against my own vulnerable, moldable form

The complex folds of your languid eyelids relax and drift down

Tears overthrown, shaken away by loving breath, 
blowing warm.



I am quickly reminded that we are but two wholes becoming one

Not like the clay nestled in a potter`s hands

But like the ocean, two rivers 
flowing away from the land.


Wednesday, September 11, 2013

And I Hear: my latest poem.



And I Hear

A swaying above.
The dank black form of the musty chandelier
Gives off its empty, flickering brilliance.
A blue ghost sweeps into my periphery
Discarding its turbulent vacuum through the din gloom.
I seem to catch it. My mind says yes
As time swallows me whole.

It moves with my heart, and like it, my heart
Carries on without you.
The shadow of your own lengthy form sways against me
As it and time passes.
Your skin burned into my neuronic template
Locked away. Precious.
Lost love plated, inscripted.

Savor your essence on my rough tongue,
Lingering sweetness seeps into me
Like some still remains to be dug up and lifted from the earth
Semi-intact, waiting to be revived.
Through the particles of dust and dirt,
Forgotten pages, and gifts, and glass,
Sounds stolen, possessed, passed.

And I, a grave robber,
Thief of the heart`s lost but hollow beauty
I possess a memory of hair as if washed by strawberry rain
It softly rests upon my shoulder as I observe
Watch it. Embrace it.
But still press through greedily to another moment pillaged.
And move away to crave only the ugliness
Found in a twisted, uncharted future.

Time is
A bleak, faded non-presence
Slipping through gnarled hands
The sweeping of their curling nails
Against the battered old wooden board of time`s fortress
Moving relentlessly, moving away
From moments so frantically captured
Swallowed inside my craving wanton self.

Your and my own verses jut out
Just out of reach but still
There as its own heavy presence between us.
Your verses in timed rhythm with my restless limbs
Longing to push forward
Moving ahead into this gloom
Running from time and its nightmares and desolate visions
Of the fallacy it is.

Vast legs so warm compared to this cold marble
That I caress now.
Like the carvings of the ancients:
Cold, lifeless, dead to all.
Like you:  a vision long lost.
My blue lips nipping the tips of your slender fingers
My teeth ripping your fingerprints away from you
Kept close and safe: your essence.
It is mine for a while.
So I drift
Away
Time cannot consume what I have gained
It utters your name as it passes
And I hear.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

I Am Back


photo credit: billphelps.com
I am back.  What else does one write after being away from their poor, neglected  blog for almost 6 months?  It seems that I come back here during times of turbulent emotions: those times when I do not feel as if I am floating on tranquil waters.  When the waves start to crash on my shores, and I struggle to find footing again, but realize that I should just let go, let the waves take me away somewhere new and uncharted.  A place to call my own, gained through both struggle and self-defeat, from being faced with feelings of sadness and the kind reactions of reassurance of so many beautiful others in my life. I have quite a few poems written now and am thinking about publishing them.  I will write maybe two more and will then be ready. I believe that this is where these waves are taking me. A fresh start is in the distance.  A new sort of me. Six months of self-assessment and self discovery have brought me back to myself, if that is possible.  My ever-changing, evolving self anyway.  From my sensing of a misplaced fear of solitude to the realization that I have not been allowing myself to find true solace from within, I have escaped from life`s grasp and have returned. A bit bruised, but never shaken, and never beaten.

There is no need to adjust my sails any more.  I have come home.  I am free to release and just let go.