Today not Today…

They walk in rags of highest order,
these people known to some as serfs.
Heads bowed, tempered not fiercely,
ignoring most of life’s adulations.

Can help be attained or given,
to a sullen language of postures.
As they walk quietly past wrongs,
never asking for hero worship.

Courage is staying alive today,
casualties strewn on streets hourly.
Facing a situation’s reality rarely,
keeps sanity in elapsed consciousness.

occult clouds stream
touched the vaults insidious hue
the candle tuft
twisted and black

Masters of vision
laid upon the tracks and dreamt
the shire horse run down
the hounds alive
amongst the birds of black

Awake in nights curled ache
the parking lot vacant stare
a shroud of fear creeping

Beneath the tender tallow night
the restless sleep talks restless
flight
awake the hours crawling haste
the hot elleptic brilliant taste

Dark winter clouds now rule the sky,
and in my heart there is a terrible sigh,
for the snow has fallen upon this earth
and my heart has lost its entire worth.

Now I wait for the fresh air of another spring,
where rolling fields of bluebonnets will reign.
With those many blooming flowers of blue
that will bring a rendezvous of just us two.

The darling houses with their gardens of delight
are all done up as if they’re going out tonight.
Birds whistle, like the traffic, hardly noticed.
I goof along, singing songs, my eyes unfocused.

Children run, mothers fuss, its ten to nine.
Real cuckoo chimes the hour; kids form a line.
Cars angle parked beneath the trees are silver dark.
Grills grin, they’re sleekly shaped, cold as a shark.

From the sun I'd borrow its warmth
from the clouds some softness
from the stars the pride
and would borrow from the rain gentleness
to wrap my frigid heart.

From the sky I'd borrow its glory
from the day some light
from the night the quietness
and would borrow from the moon its sight
to veil my weary face

I'd borrow from the trees generosity
from the sea some passion
from the rocks some strength
and would borrow from the soil compassion.
to fill up that greedy heart.

Middling Finale

utter failing
aspirations grand
anticipation
stripped away
one dream
in succession
as the abyss
of mediocrity
yawns bleak

oblivion
glowers back
fixedly
watchful
one misstep
condemn
and decree
the final
shame
and end
of
me

The setting sun
backlights a tree
in midst of a bare field
turning every limb and twig
stark black

This old oak
backlit by pink
a tracery of random lines
combined in their complexity
to form a singular
tangle of lace

Laid bare by winter
for all who care to see
those twig tips
reaching skyward
toward remembered light and warmth
for now diminished
yet unforgotten
as this tree dreams on
of spring and rekindled life

Eyes cast down
submissive stance
she's his clown
he leads the dance

Always at his bidding
no initiative to show
she must forever show willing
or his wrath she will know

He'll pay for whatever she wants
as long as she obeys
with pretty things he taunts
her emotions he plays

She's his possession
one of his toys
he's her obsession
she lovingly complies

The morning awakes most cloudy and dark,
gray billowy skies forming into an arc,
ominous weather now posing a murky destiny,
as the blacksmith sips black coffee from his crockery.

Preparing his thoughts for the day’s vocation
a journeyman gruffly enters to the kitchen,
taking a piece of brown loaf-bread from the oven,
he asks the Master for the work day’s instruction.

Language,
its live music fills the universe with sounds
that never die,
each phrase recorded in the sky,
the rhythms of its song established, tried,
ever changing with the throng of youth
in newer times.

All variations on the theme,
the voice of many tongues,
a magical cacophony of utterances, written,
sung,
performed as dance,
interpreted expressions of our lives,
that out in space,
when we are gone,
survives.