PRECIPICE

The crossroad ends at this juncture,
a puncture to you psyche; a stab to
the heart and soul. Toes straddle
the point of no return, it is up
to you to discern your next best move.
Not long ago, you held your groove
slotted for success. But lest you forget,
you are now in a rut and your voice
cannot hoist you out of every predicament
you encounter. The pressure mounts
and you can count on one hand every stand
you had ever taken; shaken to your core
and wanting more. The chasm is wide.
Can you afford to ford its expanse?
Then again, can you afford not, too?

ETERNALLY EQUINE

Alabaster and roan, she was put down; a
broken fetlock blamed for the turn lame.
Certainly, a sad end for a once proud and
determined foal. She was a true beauty;
effervescent and ethereal.
Furlong after furlong, a strong
gait with the gallop of each
hoof striking a counterpoint to the crowd.
Indeed, now the odds were against her.
Jockeys would run her hard and fast,
keeping her on the track far
longer than she should have been.
Many years back, she was a champion, but
now in her later days, she was not.
Other trainers would have put her to
pasture, but where her legs failed, her spirit remained strong.
Question her determination, and she'd prove you wrong.
Rest would have helped her for sure, but
she knew she had one good race left in her.
Three quarters of the way around the track,
unknown to her owner, she fractured a leg.
Very few horses would have continued, but
winning her final race would reveal a true champion's heart.
X-rays would verify the sad fact. After
years of racing, her fate was sealed. Outstanding in her field,
Zenotrope's Zip found her rest in eternal pastures.


Response to:

"Heaven For Horses" by Lew Sarett

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.

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.

THE EMERGENT SEA

A lone sailor; stargazer
and navigator, set adrift
in a calm and tranquil waterway.
The day is overcast,
and above the mast his banner flies.
Gentle ripples coaxed by
the lake's nautical breath.
The call of the gulls is garish,
nearly nightmarish in their persistence.
An insistence that they be taken
seriously. Deliriously, he tacks,
feeling the wind, aroused and rancorous,
a cantankerous caterwaul at the fall of day.
Waves awash; a wild wake churning,
a yearning to manipulate the canvas
that spurs his vessel on. He is tossed,
a lost soul in a sea of doubt. Shouts
for assistance go unheard; not a word.
He signals a frantic S.O.S.; a message
for salvation. For the duration of the torrent,
the Ol' Salt is battered and splattered against
the ebony night. Despite the norm,
this perfect storm is destructive,
counter-productive to the life
of a cast-away stargazer; navigator.
A lone sailor, gone.

MAY RAIN

Clouds, dark and ominous,
a predominance of wind and chill,
not enough to kill the plants
but enough to make them dance
in the whip up of weather.
A silence falls; precursor
to a storm approaching,
encroaching on a good day
with the threat so offered.
A mist begins, begetting a shower;
a sudden downpour ensues
while you rush to the car
with keys in hand and a hope to reach
the power windows before
giving the seats a good soaking.
Tough luck. It's a shame
you don't move as quickly
as you used to. Rain - 1, seats - zip.

HOPE AND CHANGE

Making a change for change sake,
is akin to shouting into the wind.
Intentions, mask the futility
of where your fire is directed.
In retrospect, nothing really
does transform. It is manipulated.
It is cajoled; a good front is placed
in front of the vile vision still seething.
Thoughts become controlling; left to
simmer and boil over again in time.
Turning a jaundiced eye to the truth.
You hope for better, but don't hold your breath!

JUST LUNCH

My Father.
An hour out of my work day.
Every Tuesday, every noontime.
He, the master carpenter.
He, the drummer.
Me, the wide eyed boy again.
In awe of all the demons
he has battled and defeated.
A warrior in the fight for his life.
Our old kitchen; my old man.
“How you doing, Pops?”
“Sonny, I’m dying.”
With three words
I died a bit myself.
Just lunch. Much to digest.

LOVE IN INSOLENT TONES

Hearts split abruptly,
a degradation of emotion;
a commotion of fact and fantasy,
brought to bear, wrought with the fear
of a lonely life, or an amazing facsimile
of the same. Lost in the game
of who did what to whom,
finding out none too soon that the reasons
for your union were wrong
in the first place, finding yourself
in the worst place you can imagine,
bereft of passion and a mindless muse.
You have to choose between
what you really need, and what
your heart requires. A smoldering pyre
of indifference, spoken in a demeaning nature,
and her nomenclature tells you
that love’s labor was not lost,
it was blown to smithereens

Mental block,
damming your mind's
fluidity. Reservoirs
of thought isolated,
their transmission halted.
Synapses on hiatus,
vacant stares of your
minds eye, unfocused
and blank, blinded by
the dark shroud of cranial confinement.