Our Armistice now –
Fields of crosses row on row
Yet the poppies blow
*With apologies to “In Flanders Fields”
Tag: Poem
Fusion
I blew up last night
while you were asleep.
Between your soft breaths
my fuse was lit –
twelve seconds – not much
time to run away
from myself to safety.
An unstable charge
That has no out but in,
Its umbilical reactor
Collapsing in hot fusion
Of your skin and mine,
Where you dreamt
The center of the sun.
From Charley’s “Casting Bricks” challenge “Destruct”
Charley in bold, mine follows.
Άνάθεμα (Anathema)
It’s never about birds in poetry;
it is about our inadequate,
marrow-filled bones that
weigh us down
reminding us of the immediacy
of the dust.
It’s never about stars in poetry;
It is about drinking from the night
As from the floodwaters of Noah –
Watching the Ark pull from shore
Without you. At least you
Will not die of thirst,
Those receding lights
Your final comfort.
From Jilly’s November “Casting Bricks”
Jilly in bold, my abomination follows.
Haiku – River Nihil
Not a soul about –
Saints and sinners come to naught
Story of our lives
Haiku – All Hallow’s Eve
Hollow evening sky
Churchyards empty under moon –
All souls feel unrest
I learned the nightjar whip-poor-will
I learned the nightjar
Whip-poor-will
Can sense a soul departing,
Its wing chord
Precedes the darkness –
A nighthawk shadow
Hunting down the light
Like prey.
Does it carry us then
Through the sidereal night
To the end of stars?
Where black as diamonds
Carbon sings its last,
And wings fold tight in a
Last dive past gravity –
Our final compact
With certainty.
Haiku – Where to Now?
“As with dancing you have to learn the steps”
– Jim Harrison (Day Three – 28 Days of Unreason)
Stairs like Rubik’s cube
Dance steps to infinity –
We are amazed
Three Haiku – Darkness
1.
Creosote darkness –
Refineries on the Turnpike
Tannin-colored skies
2.
Year draws short of breath –
Conspicuous consumption
Bright red Christmas lights
3.
Shattered streetlight glass –
Match strikes, cigarettes glowing
Darkness flashes teeth
Psalm 1:23 PM
Every afternoon now
I walk to the corner of 59th
And Madison Avenue
In New York City.
Which is neither
Here
Nor there.
Each time
I ask.
I ask the kebab guy,
The Uber driver,
The delivery man unloading
His truck,
This or that
Woman or man
Waiting for the light.
Of course they can’t hear me.
I ask myself too I guess.
Except I don’t really know
What my question is.
I want the world –
All the kebabs, cars, subway grates –
To make sense somehow.
I want to believe
That maybe one piece
Of life hangs together
With another.
“Everything is connected!”
You, my reader, just replied
In your head.
Of course. I say that too
Every day
In my head.
Why would you accept
Such an easy answer
That means so little?
I’m not interested in Truth.
Really just the kebab guy
And me,
And whoever walks by.
The light on sidewalk
Outside the shoe store.
Sure, OK,
I believe in kababs. I
Probably believe in you
Too.
And not getting run over
In the crosswalk.
That’s good.
qbit 