STEPPING OUT

Out of the darkness

where you’ve hidden your muse

in the shadowy thicket, bringing

it into the bright daylight.

No matter how you fight

to keep your ideas fresh and new,

your view had been used; your vantage point

has been abused. So, you slant

your rant in a slightly twisted way,

bringing forth a new version of the things you say.

Breathing a sigh of relieved contentment,

you discard resentment and go through the paces,

filling the empty spaces with bits of your wit

and finally getting “it”. One foot after the other,

Brother. You’re back in business.

You’re stepping out. Welcome home,

you’ve emerged a better man for it.

APPROACHING WINDS (A Sestinal Cascade)

The winds of change blow; they come and go,
everything in its wake is subject to an upheaval.
The retrieval of all usurped is best left for when the winds die;
unsuccessful tries will be your score until the winds are no more.
Ride out the storm, keep yourself warm, with visions of better times ahead,
there’s nothing with which to concern yourself.

Your one charge is you. Yourself.
From the day you were born, you were always on the go.
Not sure where you were headed, but it was full steam ahead,
causing your ruckus; an unspoken upheaval
that gave you a hunger for even more.
The retrieval of all usurped is best left for when the winds die.

On the day you will have died,
will people speak as highly of you, as you refused to do of yourself?
Or, will they shake their heads and lament your potential to do more?
Take your acclaim as you go,
and continue your poetic pyrotechnics despite the expected upheaval.
Ride out the storm, keep yourself warm, with visions of better times ahead.

Express yourself with more aplomb; show you are more than a heart and a head.
Carry through with worded wisdom, whether you stand and fight, or quietly die.
No one will blame you for the casualties of your upheaval,
for in the end, your passion will make them better poets, in spite of yourself.
Leave them to embrace you, or to scratch their heads as they go.
Unsuccessful tries will be your score until the winds are no more.

And if you just happen to leave them wanting more,
then get out of bed, because once again, it is full steam ahead.
The direction we all choose determines how we will go,
for life is to be savored, despite its labor, until we die.
Don’t live in delusion, you’ll find you need them as much as you deny yourself.
Everything in its wake is subject to an upheaval.

So, take up your armor daily, determined to up heave all
that tries to force your hand. Take a stand. Give them more!
You’ll find the confidence that has eluded. Treat yourself
to the accolades of which you are most deserving, and ahead
of all else, ride out the storm until the day you die.
The winds of change blow; they come and go.

As the prevailing winds go, the only obstacle to their upheaval
dies in the face of a strong will and words of a more direct nature.
Forget the nomenclature. Forge ahead. There’s nothing with which to concern yourself.

UNTIL MY HEART BEATS

Until my heart beats again, I will wait,
and remain the victim of my fate.
Without a sense of hopelessness, I find
enough reasons to keep you on my mind,
thoughts of you to which I can relate.

A distant love to languish at the gate
between despair and life we celebrate,
compassion of a good and gentle kind
until my heart beats.

The chasm, although wide, is not so great
to leave me standing near the ledge of hate,
for feelings so destructive will unwind
the love of life it took so long to find.
I will remain this victim of my fate
until my heart beats.

BEFORE THE STORM

How strangely still
the water is today.
Calm and tranquil, strangely still.

Clouds upon the horizon,
harbingers of things to come;
clouds obliterate the sun.

The air is cold; it chills,
winds stirring through the clearing.
Winds of change do not thrill.

How strangely still
the water is today.
Peaceful thoughts; I get my fill.

And then the clouds converge,
driven by gusts of icy breath;
a nasty dose of a late season surge.

Before the storm, it seemed quite warm.
How strangely still
the water was today. Such a rapid decay!


** Inspired by "Sea Calm", by Langston Hughes

MIST IN THE SHADOW OF NIGHT

A howl of wind calls,
beckoning all the ghoulish apparitions
from their anguished slumber.
The stumbling lumber of death reborn.

These mystic silhouettes;
shadows of a past long forgotten,
rise like a fog that masquerades as thoughts.
Legend and folklore are dismissed as folly.

Lunar illumination; moon beams
shrouded in mystery. Their sordid history
brings a chill, as fright displaces your resolve.
Blood marks the place where death resides.
 
Your hunger burns and you crave
the nectar of a once beating heart.
But, as life departs, the pangs stab
bringing you one step closer to the soil.
 

LEFT IN SILENCE

I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.
But, my mat remains
pristine and untried.
I strain to hear any noise
that I might construe as a voice.
Such familiarity would soothe
a soul time worn and exasperated,
but those I seek have left
only a residue silence that
assures to smother my thoughts.
I ought to shake the cobwebs
from the rafters of this mired mind.
Yet, I find that memory is nothing
but a smoldering ember
languishing to rekindle into a pyre
of poetic preponderance;
a reminiscence that placates
the love that lingers still.
A finger pressed to lips
that long for passion's kiss,
secures the void on which
my thoughts have relied.
The silence inside deafens.

**Without straying anywhere near Middle Earth, “I Sit and Think” by JRR Tolkien, sparks my muse this day.

MY SUSTAINING MUSE

O'muse forgive me.
You were always there,
like light, like air.

When thoughts reveal

all that I feel, you provide

a voice for the words I choose.

Never failing, sending these

words kites sailing; soaring

into the atmosphere for all to hear.

I take you for granted here, o'muse

sometimes, and at times I abandon

my sensibilities when you give me

the ability to paint life onto a blank page

as if some sage had possessed me.

But, I owe all I am to what drives me.

A pursuit of poetic perfection,

a direction that joins us; a marriage.

Like melody and lyric, this empiric

connection is God-sent, meant

to express all that you suggest.

So muse, forgive me.
For all you share,
my light, my air. 

**Inspired by "Farewell and Thanksgiving" by Mark van Doren

THE SHAWL

A shawl; a shroud.

Crocheted in hues

of black and crimson yarns,

the winsome tatter across her shoulders.

A gift perhaps,

or a remnant left at her disposal.

No offer or proposal, just a spinster maybe,

or a not-so-gay divorcee. She wouldn’t say.

Her silence is her voice; her stare, vacant and dead.

Around her head, a babushka cinched tightly

beneath her chin, a lofty noose without a victim.

The window opens the world to her disinterest,

at best, she has random flashes of its existence.

She clutches the cozy covering closer to her,

a sanctuary of sort. A harbored port

in this station of her life. Once someone’s wife

she remembers. Or she doesn’t. It matters not.

People did not find their comfort in her company.

Hers was offered in chastisement and vitriol.

This decrepit soul lost in the warmth of her frigidity.

It’s a pity. She does not remember that she was evil.
But, she knows that she feels cold.

**A nod to my heritage, from Polish poet Anna Swirszczynska’s “She Does Not Remember”.

MY HEART SLEEPS

May your whispers be softer
than a leaf of grass,
and nestle effortlessly
into my tired ear. No fear
graces this night,
and gentle ruminations
from your breathed sighs
calm my emotions.
You have nursed and nurtured,
faint murmurs of your tenderness
find me as I seek a safe
and wanted nesting place;
my ear pressed to your chest,
connected to your pulse and rhythm.
Comfort presented at your breast,
a sanctuary that my heart defends.
And in the end, your shared peace
gives my heart rest. A most blessed slumber.

**In celebration of the Chilean Miner Miracle, today I have chosen Chilean poet,

Gabriela Mistral from her work, “The Sad Mother”.

LYRIC WATER REJOICES AT SEASIDE

The happy dead are in its voice.

Majestic Poet! Might I be as full of song.
Melodies of seafarers past

haunt each true and measured step.

Lilting, ever-lifting; a gift

from the weary mariner to Neptune’s ear.

Accompanied in breath and beat,

symphonic sound of a lunar baton.

Maestro of the night, unwavering.

Building to crescendo, euphonic.

Tympani, cacophonous crash;

an introduction to the score

so written. And hidden within

languishes its familiar song,

lyrical expressions of heart and soul,

left to wash away traces of the moment.

Never ending refrain, sing again!

**Derived from “On Seeing A Train Start For the Seaside” by English poet, Norman Rowland Gale

AT THE ZOO

Cramped quarters, and crowded to overflow,

you never know how these things are planned.

As it would stand, the animals had little say.

It was sad and upsetting in a way,

that the keepers made the choices and

those without voices had little to say.

The variety of the species was intriguing,

in a league all their own, over-blown

in scope, and that left little to say.

Everyday, the wild ones were forced into domesticity,

a simplicity to those cracking the whip. The zookeeper

fond of rum indeed, due to breeding and nothing constructive to say.

Four young lions, strong in spirit and vision,

but always in division over their birth right

and wrong as it sounded, they had little to say.

Gazelles, graceful and girlish, flanked the habitat,

concerned with this and that, did strive to survive the onslaught,

but, they ought to have been allowed more to say.

When it was feeding time “at the zoo”, the milieu

benefited the fittest, as we crowded around the dinner table.

You could label us as you wish, but each dish had something to say.

Life in “the zoo” offered sanctuary, with nary a worry,

for family gave you more than we “beasts” expected.

We were well protected, and that said it all.

KNOW, THEY DO!

At the turn to the straight
where the favourites fail
the steeds, brave and strong,
run at a length and a tail.
The competition drives them,
roan and pitch hued behemoths alike
stretching and straining,
at the far turn as dust is strewn,
none the worse for their training.
Eyes wide and full in stride,
the gallop sounds of tympani,
and jockeys slight and wiry,
abreast the beast in harmony;
a oneness in their trek.
Crowded grandstands cheer,
while the purists fear their wagers
will offer no return but despair.
And in the paddock, comrades
stir them onward, whinny and neigh,
well on the way to a victory for one.
Off and running at the sound of a gun,
only to cross the line; photo finish.
A nose gets the win, and an equine grin.


**Inspired by “Do They Know?” by Australian poet, Banjo Paterson

NINE MINUTES

You come and stay for hours,
amidst the psychedelic flowers
and impossible scenarios.
Running past streets and barrios
with Joses and Marios, looking
for solace in a nightful of frightful
turns and plot twists. You've wished you
can finish a complete thought,
but your REM cycle keeps running out of gas.
In the foggy distance, a wail.
It never fails just when you get
to the good part you have to depart,
trying to restart every nine minutes
until your snooze alarm comes back to call.

STEPPING OUT OF PLEASANTVILLE

Beyond the bland, you venture.
Your adventure follows no norm,
trying to stay warm, but black and white
leaves you cold. It makes you feel old,
a vintage version of the you you know.
But, life is full of flavor, not meant
to be lacking the living it gives.
Lives are to be livid; vivid in scope
and spectrum. Color permeates you.
For flesh and blood looks better
the redder we are. Our palettes bloom.

LIFTING THE VEIL

Clouds converge, a conglomeration

of confusion and doubt. Out of reasons

for all that deceives and perplexes;

vexing me with the hazy illusion of life.

Rife with the desire to think in complete

thoughts; it ought to be easy for one

who chooses to use his muse to express.
And yes, the persistence of my mind

gives me the urge to shed this shroud

and shout out loud to all that will listen.

Thankfully, when you lift the veil, you find clarity.

It is a rarity that you seldom see. A vision

meant to stimulate you and allows you to emulate

nature's narcissistic nudge, inspired and confident.

The view obscured by the muted curtain is brighter for certain,

and your thoughts drape gracefully like a technicolor tapestry.

**Writer's Island - Prompt #24 "Envision"