At the Fallen Gate, Page 2

As I forgave that vision in white…

  forgave that dreamy crooner,

  burning, high in the too-sweet blue;

  just so, did I cotton to the rites

  late after the end of sunset’s fossil moon.

  At the bitter bark of twenty-one…

  muzzled, sharp; lying, cold;

  she had spilled salt, sniffling a song

  which rang at the roses dying.

  Might I cost you a feather or two?

  You who had punched the first in line?

  Forgiven, but not so fast…

  As it was wrong, wrong, wrong to do.

  Forgiven, but pay the piper, you must.

  Grief is woven of bright threads…

  and tears break, like waves, the strongest men;

  as the clock winds down, and the days unfurl

  we find our price is easily met…

  In a Fall of Roses

  Love, it seems, is for the weary of heart

  and that heart not taken is a heart unseen...

  what pearl is this, not wanted, not claimed,

  that a child had found, and is hers to keep?

  Old matron, I saw those many years

  of struggles and lazy-boned beer drinking pigs.

  You shouldered a burden I could not have borne...

  how I wish you had a shoulder to cry on.

  Old spinster, I rue you your cup of tea...

  that man never came with his flowers and poems.

  Yes, tears so bitter that they burn your dress...

  no, I could not have been so true.

  Old widow, I remember a sunset rose

  that bloomed in a sky I have yearned to see...

  and with my lover I'll know that eve

  once scrawled with a crayon with a childish ease.

  Old soldier, those many years have gone,

  since, without thinking, you had scarred her love.

  With you all, I bitterly disagree...

  and keep my ashes in a pickle jar.

  Where Once a Treasure Lay

  The world's heart, it is no more.

  Goliath lives, and Davy slain...

  I wonder what this rose is for?

  Now empty, where once was a door

  to spirit, smiles, romance and rain...

  the world's heart, it is no more.

  How easy tear-stained paper tore,

  and lover's words, now all in vain.

  I wonder what this rose is for?

  Her vows and secrets all were swore

  in whispers, in the coffin, lain...

  the world's heart, it is no more.

  A world's love was needed more,

  like mother's milk, will leave a stain...

  I wonder what this rose is for?

  Feed the hungry, house the poor,

  an old soft-shoe with hat and cane...

  the world's heart, it is no more,

  I wonder what this rose is for?

  A Perspective on Myself

  Having no tail,

  and no way of getting one,

  I decided to embark

  on a journey.

  I looked into my soul,

  or what I thought was my soul,

  looking for some perspective

  on how to see myself.

  I acquired a perspective,

  or many perspectives...

  but, one perspective, I particularly liked...

  or many perspectives...

  Never did I find

  my self-image.

  I think I used to have one...

  now I think I have many.

  Who is it, in here,

  and what do I look like?

  Rather, how do I imagine myself?

  Or, what do I see?

  A Garden, Graced

  I am pondering

  your gifts to the lily,

  the same as

  your gifts to me.

  Your water, clean,

  has soaked the dirt

  where never I

  have healed the hurt,

  sweet breath of air

  beneath your skirt

  may never

  a prisoner, free;

  yet the same

  are your gifts to me.

  The turn of your spade

  in fertile soil

  for which you give

  your time to toil

  won't leave the fruit

  to the sun to spoil,

  won't yet

  make a blind man see;

  still the same

  as your gifts to me.

  The song of your heart

  as it springs to your lips,

  as you tend the beds

  on the breeze, it slips,

  and the dance of the bees

  in the bend of your hips

  will not keep the axe

  from the tree;

  still as bright

  are your gifts to me.

  Insinuation

  There are plenty of

  plain-spoken men wearing wool

  who won't have anything to do with it. . .

  plenty of woolen women

  who never asked Manny to fly.

  Moss covers you, lover. . .

  moss all over your gown,

  and your eyes, and your breast.

  Graft with the moss-covered men

  Who climbed to the top of the candle.

  Yarn is one cost with knitting;

  pennies for lengths of yarn.

  Needles as long as the evening,

  sighing and pointy-sharp, yawn.

  Once, you'd fit that small sweater.

  Hearts all encrusted with silver;

  you had made the mice bullion. . .

  grey had worn the top-hat lightly.

  Who won that cold prisoner?

  Won him over to moans?

  There is a stone never acknowledged

  over pepper, over bone,

  in the world of ocean spray. . .

  wind all over the globe. . .

  I had walked that wind.

  Slowly

  All words lost

  to that sad, sadistic, grind. . .

  waiting. . .

  for the goose-step hands

  of another recalcitrant clock

  to fold up our prayer. . .

  ghost

  Squeal of brat

  jams mom’s cogs;

  TV barks fiction

  at her only no.

  Voodoo pride,

  pinning her down. . .

  cramp

  Just a second, there. . .

  just a moment of your time.

  I'll make it quick.

  Sometimes its blue,

  sometimes red. . .

  just a reminder

  Relax, baby-blue. . .

  give up your flapper;

  busting up skies,

  and Joe, downwind.

  Walk ten paces

  and turn around. . .

  no one

  The Lost Pursuit

  Over the hedge and up the stair,

  away from the killer that follows, slow.

  I am after him on a whispered dare.

  I have met a dream whose fate I share...

  to believe is to double what we already know.

  Over the hedge and up the stair.

  My pursuer is back behind, somewhere,

  he is lost at the edge of the noonday glow.

  I am after him on a whispered dare.

  He knows where I travel so my chances are spare,

  and though he will find me, the enigma will grow,

  over the hedge and up the stair.

  Eventually, he must come, and meet what's there.

  Though he lives to conquer, I have struck a blow;

  I am after him on a whispered dare.

  As he grapples with butterflies, light, and rare;

  as the melons ripen in a weedy row;

  I
am over the hedge and up the stair,

  though I'm after a killer on a whispered dare.

  For the Fine Hours

  I whisper the words she wants to hear…

  the words she longs for me to say;

  as long as I do, she will keep me near.

  When I said goodbye, I saw a tear,

  she doesn’t believe me anyway…

  I whisper the words she wants to hear.

  She said if I murmured in her ear,

  she wouldn’t listen, but that I may,

  as long as I do, she will keep me near.

  I cannot touch her heart, I fear,

  though I tell myself I’ll find a way.

  I whisper the words she wants to hear.

  I have loved her now for over a year,

  but it’s not the same as yesterday;

  as long as I do she will keep me near.

  Of all the things that I hold dear…

  first is the love that’s gone away.

  I whisper the words she wants to hear;

  as long as I do she will keep me near.

  Within Our Smiles

  She was barely a whisper

  and I was almost a shadow...

  somehow, though, we

  were heard, and seen

  in a quiet moment when

  the tatters of an old shirt

  flapped gently in the breeze.

  She walked that line with such grace,

  such easy steps

  that I was caught up in a breeze

  that moved me along...

  with her, beside her, and inside her.

  The shadows stripped naked

  and danced with one single flame

  that the trees had known in a roar

  and that a match had known to strike.

  You, old sun, know not at all, fire...

  you are an old goat...

  you and your weedy pasture.

  A damned old crow

  watched from atop a high tree

  he could see our spirits

  leap into the sky;

  up away, and past him

  into the clear blue.

  The words cannot say it,

  nor the shadows betray it...

  the sun can't shine on it,

  nor the crow bear true witness...

  all I am, and all I have been

  in a quiet, breathy word.

  Without a Fight

  The world is wrong,

  the love is right...

  how do you know when love is true?

  ...when fires flare, and love turns blue?

  Witness now

  my helpless plight...

  I am caught in a dream of loving you,

  fated for love, whatever I do.

  Like the strike of a match,

  like a sparrow in flight...

  an energy quivers me, through and through,

  along with the sun, it rises, too.

  I have seen you, there,

  with a second sight...

  how this is so, I haven't a clue,

  but the well was there, and the water, I drew.

  It has been a long while

  since the future looked bright...

  perhaps I am drunk on a witches brew?

  What is this dream I've stumbled onto?

  Press

  Rollers print out nameless papers, stanchions of missing axioms, epilogue for a time unfinished and deep in shadows. Letters inscribed as reminders of the passage of time. Words on forms whispering of light and consequence after storm.

  Feed impression, let springs and gears dwell and return, turning the stationary axle. Standard will apply, ink for half-tone in reservoir, reciprocating matrix working for fixtures of press. Flatbed holds paper, ripe for print.

  Ocean of type, roll and crash, waves eroding the beach of misconception, tired eyes fastening on facts, listless runners on a track of time. This process, pages of shadowy ruminations, left like sand crabs on the white dunes.

  Feeding my creature, the wind, ink is stamped on newsprint, and stains the apron of the printer. Given unto substance, rife with sums and remainders, words give motion to concepts full of momentum, the free flow of information following its own channels.

  Partial to sense, night wills portent to the ink plate. Open window, scatter tickets to the ocean of swells. Spoor of tiger, find teeth in list of spoken words. Cast its spell on living carpet, asymmetrical and often apart from broken bones. Stones rise up and take their life from whirlwinds, address to cut gems.

  Echoes of lost print, incinerated in the fires of now lifeless dictators’ iron-fisted commands. These veiled words, parcel and part of shrouded history, dance in the endless flames of relevance. Shadowed relativity, the starry sky of evolution’s science, is yet the source of cultural potential, and is lightened and informed by our presses.

  Words are stolen and left in boxes, to be opened and laid bare, subject to our most assiduous examinations.

  Rack and ribs, parcel of stamps, notice side arm, working apparatus. Spare ink roller, position counterweight on shaft, use grippers. Paper rolls out printed black and white, storied of madness and mayhem, spelling out a veil between man and his oxen.

  Books, elements of literature, stacked on shelves and tucked away in dusty libraries, draw on resources of language, make their imprint on culture.

  Seeds of knowledge, grow fruit of wisdom on your long, green vines. Spell out consequence on your typewriter, asking not for the aid of myth or dogma. Trails of opinions lead to rocky caves, where trouble lives and hands out clues.

  Night resides in emptiness, while the results of education brightens and pushes back the shadows of ignorance and misconception. Trickle of resource, spring of fresh ideas, turn your trick on ill-founded axioms. Wash away fear and oppression, which limp through the statues of great men.

  Crank and cylinder, open our eyes to the motion and action of the press. Oil springs, lever, and chase hook, for the freedom and lack of friction that would otherwise compromise our easy access to information. Congress and commerce depend on your shining machinery.

  Untold stories grace your product, disseminate and distribute ttales heretofore lost in legend. Time offers a place for new ideas, and spaces on shelves beckon. Ask rooster for the spelling of dawn.

  Imprint of question, reveal crime to hesitant leader, opulence disguised as beneficent pause. Stale exclamation, voice your worries, steal away from prisons on golden road. Diet of cotton candy for babies of wealthy mules. Sharp prick of station, regulation and order for houses under night.

  Standing on tower, suited man drops leaflets to waiting masses. Full of lies, they are merely leaves from a dying tree. Their temporary stance is one of laughter and luck. Time passes up these empty proclamations.

  Bucket of words, spill over lies, drown in happy effulgence deception and trickery. Stare down well, slip over shadow, skip past gaps in rectitude.

  All consequences are stagnant and rusty, but press runs freely, giving to spatial frames their resilience and free motion. They oil the compromises and agreements of civilization.

  Society rumbles and moans as the engine of culture stands on the precipice. Its workings find respite in the calm cool water of sanity. Numbers on the march, an account of every transfer from friction to fact.

  Sections of a chapter of a law book apply to ounces of prevention, reeling out the cries of the victims. Share bread with wise man, wine with the beggar, and honey with the bees. Treasures hide in dark corners, locked in boxes, stories of fear balanced by counterweight.

  Farthing for an ounce of silver, token of recollection, reflection of a teardrop. Impression of enumerated honeycombs, dance with coils of memory. All impressed on paper, a show of reason and hypothesis, axiom and theory. Spider’s web left dry and silky in tree.

  Delicate framework s
peaks to repetition of print. Stamp your voice on white paper, a reminder of past successes and revelations. The slow hand of reason guides all effort. Find stability in balanced responses to excess.

  Staring eyes glimpse the bones of a stairway to high positions, a landing from which you a can see the occupation of man whistling and crackling far down below. In the absence of a ruling power, people rely on their resources to show them paths to peaceful and secure lives.

  Mail your letters, post your handbills, hang your banners, they tell the story. People walk from long distances to respond to them. They will talk of their opposition to your pressure for new applications of resource.

  Time will pass, and heavy-handed power wielding rulers will stumble away, on the path to forgotten mystery. But time and its passions are recorded in ink by the presses, and digging will uncover their missteps.

  The Journey of Words

  Just as I was leaving

  She reminded me of a promise

  I made, not thinking

  It would be remembered

  Why, I can't say

  I don't believe, not a word

  Though it's written on stone

  Stones wear away with time

  And people grow old and forgetful

  I am glad I am not a stone

  Were I an old man

  And all my words stretched out behind me

  I would rest easy, knowing

  That the pages of that long, long book

  I had read, and read again

  Some riddles are very easy

  And some are very hard

  A few riddles ask questions

  That only the very wise can answer

  And some no one can

  I don't know why it rains

  And I don't know why the ocean roars

  I don't know why dogs bark

  I don't know why people grow old

  And I don't know why I gave her my heart

  Promises live somewhere in our hearts

  And promises die somewhere on stone

  When written on stone, a promise

  Takes awhile to wear away

  In our hearts, promises weather the storm

  All the promises I have broken

  Still live, somewhere in my heart

  But on stone they have worn away

  Time has made this happen

  Time and its sandy wind

  Compulsion

  It's the race you couldn't win...

  it's the race you couldn't run...

  it's the race you couldn't keep from happening...

  It's the enemy you couldn't beat...

  it's the enemy you couldn't fight...

  it's the enemy you couldn't pacify...

  It's the wrong you couldn't right...

  it's the wrong you couldn't speak to...

  it's the wrong you couldn't stop in its tracks...

  It's the crime you couldn't deter...

  it's the crime you couldn't talk about...

  it's the crime you couldn't legislate against...

  It's the drug you couldn't quit...

  it's the drug you had to take...

  it's the drug you never wanted at all...

  A Balanced Unit

  Well...express some love

  for your fellow human beings...

  try not to be too cynical.

  Don't put too much stock

  in the ability of one person

  to control the actions of another.

  Don't take too much,

  and give when you can.

  Have a little romance,

  spread a little hope,

  a little joy.

  If you should find it in yourself

  to want to show

  fondness and gentleness

  to someone like yourself,

  by all means, don't hold back.

  Don't be afraid

  to admit that you need,

  and don't be afraid to admit

  that there are

  things in the world

  to be afraid of.

  Be the person that you can be,

  and not the person

  that everybody knows you are...

  be yourself.

  In Seeking a Home

  You offer no refuge from the evil man;

  no safe harbor in which to moor and wait

  while the pirates go off in search of other prey.

  You offer no freedom from his mean blade,

  his curses and his rum,

  his threats and extortion.

  We have no respite from the criminal mind;

  from that bending of wills to the service of ill.

  Where may I beam the if not billow and bail?

  To a wind the unfettered by malice and gloom,

  as words, to the roses, are carried by the bees;

  and yet he skulks in my sitting room.

  You offer no shelter from the arrows;

  no castle within which magic is worked

  to keep off the Huns and their robbing and woe.

  No hidden doors, no secret rooms.

  No game of feathers, to the archer, is immune,

  but, so fast is the breaking of arrow on stone.

  You offer no shield from the cloak and dagger;

  no bold resistance to their shadowy plans,

  an agenda of lies, conspiracy, and slander.

  I cannot wrest from that sinister man

  the key to the freedom to which I aspire,

  free from the knot of blindfold and gag.

  You offer no sanctuary from the kicks and blows

  of those to whom my crumbling is an object and goal;

  no guarantee of safety from he who would command.

  How to avoid the prison cell he'll keep me in till dawn,

  the shackles he would see me in till execution morn,

  for spitting on the truce he promised with fingers crossed behind.

  To all who would work to contain my voice;

  to the architects and pawns of that evil design;

  the blood of your victims is warning enough.

  You've, allies and angels, corrupted in kind.

  You've safety and harbor from any dissent,

  but to me, you will offer up no more bribes.

  After we Gathered the Wood

  Although the moon was dark upon that night,

  we could see by the torch we'd lit up in the gray.

  I disagreed that the cabin lie over that way,

  and we argued about it loudly in the flickering light.

  We could argue about it till dawn came, rosy and bright,

  or I could play along. Whatever you say,

  I hadn't forgotten the pine where I saw that jay,

  that stood behind us, now lost and out of sight.

  I'm an agreeable man, though I don't like to stray

  over hill and dale for nothing, but, rather than fight,

  I told her we'd wander the path where she said it lay.

  I imagine if I were a fish, I'd end up a bite,

  and if I were a boat, I'd float by the dock in the bay...

  to make a long story short, this time she was right.

  A Day in the Park

  That bird did spread its wings, and came aloft

  from tree branch tied with limbs and leaves and hue;

  and flapped and climbed, up empty sky so blue...

  I admired its easy ascent, graceful and soft.

  I followed with my eyes the soaring arc;

  the lift and glide of feathers, wings, and air,

  as the jay became a part of the sky, so fair...

  in the self-contained world of the city park.

  Up above this lake of grass and trees

  the jay is beckoned by a stretch of limb,

  sunlit in cove of branches, as she sees.

  With graceful curve, alighting on this turn

  she cries a brief reminder to the
spring

  that any male that tries, she'll likely spurn.

  A Prick in the Wool

  Imprisoned in the gentle curl of a lock,

  an archer’s whispers quietly dangle and burn,

  as under the moon, he casually takes his turn…

  with silvery fumbles, the arrow is drawn and knocked.

  Quick, and sweet, slipping into the flock,

  he sings his lullaby tune, hard and stern,

  for the lamb he wants, and from the butter churn,

  butter for bread and dawn for crowing cock.

  No rose on a dirty grave, no brassy urn

  for the mutton, won, now boiled in onion stock,

  tender, tasty, and choice, as we’re to learn.

  The sunrise comes up fast with revealing shock,

  and how with a hapless bleat can she rightly spurn

  the stew of his boiling ardor, thrown in a crock?