Teeming

A swinging pickaxe collides with rebar as I watch

The worker curses, missed his mark

Wipes his brow, glances at the jackhammer, thirsts for a motor

Ahead the tunnel looms, a blackened circle punched through the mountain

A curving timberline seemingly bends with the slope

The queue snails forward a few meters

August road work in the Northeast has many enemies on the interstate

Sharp horns release themselves happy to be heard

Noontime sun swipes at our patience, I haven’t spoken since Fairfield

The day is adrift, a lonesome berg for me

Air vents releasing manufactured comfort assault my eyes

Tearing I have no recourse, my nose is a stream

Onward he spouts his speak, tales of life, interest, and consequence

Orange signs litter the median every quarter mile crewed with dictatorial purpose

The narratives of the driver are lost on me, I have my dam

Constructed with cones of unheard desire, it is the world I choose

Knew my place in this row long before

Taillights pulse for a second fusing a brilliant thought for me

Blowing my nose again, I think of sharing it with him

He booms on about his time in Paris

Ten times a charmed story retold, my mind whirls in the quiet.  

Impermanence

Time and again I declare a level heading

As if I were the judge of such matters

Carrying out an ironclad course woven with shared spools of desire

All thirst for this state

From the desert of melancholy to the reservoir of fear

Tales are spoken in hushed tones amongst the wandering gatekeepers

For the narrative knows no bounds in the wrong mind

    Caressed by an attentive breeze

                Emboldened with solar fuel

                The running tide is tempered

                By a wistful blue horizon

With such pleasant lines I did forget the nature of being

Holding them in high esteem for a spell

Nascent in form and regard I kneeled at the altar of possession  

Clinging to the trail of happiness

It danced to and fro eventually shaking me.   

Wavelength

Making layups I rush to this moment

Twice daily I take the plunge to what is

Usually mood blinds me to the process

Sometimes the propellers of obsession guide me to its lap

Today, akin to the others is guided

Balanced on the beams of terror and joy

The breath vessel plunges me under the tide

Sinking I lose all conception as the thoughts race

Identify, judge, negative, positive, past, present, feel, numb

Narrowing the searchlight within I let go

The vanity of thirsting for meaning in every movement of mind begins to fade

This cerebral sun zips the cover shut

All continues, the mind plods the course, fatigueless

A determined beast of ruinous consequence

Image leaps over me, within grasp

The bountiful hopper is I

Pursuing, serene in this account

Resting on my back, arms at side, chest heaving with momentum

Vision of a man void of histrionics

Bearded lord of his domain, clasped in the now

A waterfall of snapshots come, I freeze a few

One a long lost mate, disciple, believer, fellow preacher

On a German tip
Time came between yet all is the same

Balls never lose their spin

The second is a bother in spirit and craft

Mine behind, his maybe ahead

An unquenchable lifer, limb giver, hearty explorer

Schedules and children took our blood

Free throws are just that, free

Push the chaise out, sit a spell, therapeutic fuel in the talk

All continues, the mind paces, unbridled

The determined beast of ruinous sequential proliferation

Lost the edge somewhere in the smiling visages

Back and forth all of us

Me to myself

Me to long lost mate

Me to brother in spirit

Them at me

Shake the end of the rope

Tumbling into the vacuum, I hear the tune

The chorus bleeds for my form

Trumpeting with jazzed hands I tremble

Clinging, make it last, search for the seer

I’m back.

You Be The Judge

I am drawing a blank

This white space sneers back at me

An indomitable beast salivating at the cacophony that surrounds

Unquenchable, how it delights in this exercise

Counting the movement of air

My breath spills with a hiss from pluming nostrils

The overhead fan circulates unidentifiable moments in time

A batter swings his stick on the screen

Flying out to left

McClure was fired by the Red Sox today

A lost season taints this endeavor

Peeling the fabric of sound

It’s surrounding layers chortle

A television, fan, dishwasher, pc

Endless is seems

How I long for the woods

A Whitman scene would be my repose

Have I caught a blank

In my spacious mitt of scribble

Simply by surrendering to the changeless ethos

That is a life of marked attention disorder

Amplified by our modern apparatus. 

Sheep Dance On My Pillowcase

La la la
Life lost us three
Creases shelve the halved sleep sled
Missing a marker

Pointed tones sing with the rising sun
Ceiling fan bears percussion
The alarm will buzz with me trailing
This I escape lumbering towards moodiness

Tempestuous mornings paint me forlorn
Way down as I lay low
Thank you guitar band lyric
Stealing the freshness of the day with my narrative

Peering inside the feline calls
Claws on the screen
Wonder why the windows dew
Now like never before

Should have used bigger words
Letters with consequence
To expand upon the river of listlessness
That is a man without his woman.

Riding the Body

Riding the Body

Shorn from the sidewalks of the known

Night curls in many shades

The moon sliced like so many before

Cerebral city lays afoot

Plowing the concourse with hoofed intention

The hooded figure motors ensnared with the discourse

Troubled fleers whisper

Lips pursed with paper bags

Cornered Asiatic figures hawk their wares

Processed spires a distant memory

A caricaturish mustache greets at the Hindu spot

Currying a massed flavor

Lonely keys dangle from a drain cover

The lips weathered with rust

Remains crystallize by the edge

Rained for days cursing the draught

Ahead the dashes blink with connectivity

Wanderers stumble cross the boulevard in delight

After last call comes sunlight

Hackneyed curbside pools splash temporarily

Piles of meandering thought form 

Thrown from the salon doors

Dusk is a few miles ahead

Grizzled with momentum meaning recedes

The walker is alone with his form. 

Teacher

Teacher

Lecturing from my pulpit

On comes a sense of being

Teeming with forgotten ideals

Veiled from the audience

I embark toward the task

Educating in pride and redemption

Crescendos spit forth

Visuals surround the scene

Clinging I lock the moment

A waterfall of encased thought pools

Spilling forth its dilemma

Worrisome soaked ankles

Bear the question

A hurried vision of grandeur

Is that all

This minute space in time

A hush falls from the pulpit

Listeners transplant ego by the dozens

Cupping the wetness

Lasting mantras fuel the seconds

Selfless in all our denial I explain

Ears shutter with vain speech

Want and desire furl with scores of known realities

Bend it all

Seekers seek

Weepers weep

My flock wails

Living with the words

My shared intelligence swords the timidity in the room

Timbre roars from within

Enthralled by the flow all eyes focus on me

Bees in my gospel  

The pages turn furiously

Flightless in their surrender

I capture the scene for a spell

Saving my reward for the windswept streets

Snapshots of my creation

Clutch at my visage

Still with the breeze

The speech travels to an end

I pause and watch

The keeper floats above

Blown from a infinite ledge high above

Circling all sense and reason.  

Throne

Throne


Here I sit at one with myself
The vapid mysteries quelled for the moment
Movement of air surrounds my lobes
Dancing with the pulse of recognition
I label each sound
Birds flutter
Crickets sing
Vehicles hum
Worms placate
Branches cackle
Leaves whisper
Aware that there is more than wind
Coursing through my tepid veins
Looping their way
Around the gates of this esoteric shift of conscience
I have no recourse
Go with it screams the beak
Shifting my weight I score the delight
With lids closed
The images run as wild frames do
Most I've seen
Some lay ahead
The shackles of known limits release
A repetitious being from care
Fear tickles this sensation
Boxed with thought no more
I borrow a woodsman tale
Beginning this chorus
I lie backless with the sky in front
A horn calls furtive with midday attention
Masked from the written history the choice compels me
To continue along a path
Woven with everything touched
By the unabashed desire
For breath knows no ache
Forward I go earthbound in direction
I picture myself
A grizzled being
Bleached by the sun
Lashed with clothing
Wondering how I got here
All the while
A monarch flutes above my heat
Emboldened by the flightless figure below.