Beauty

I

Dew sparkling everywhere
diamond-like tears
          of the early morning
a glittering carpet
          reflecting the sun's love;
This is beauty -
what sensuality strives to be
          and falls short of.

Short Thoughts

She was a rare thing
so fine and lacy she flowed
on the breeze or spoken word
walking about like a playful eddying wind
revealing its path in what it moves


Once the realm of the love letter,
the private call,
an intimate whisper -
electronic immediacy replaces intimacy


She was that beautiful
so that men's eyes would fasten upon her
as hands molding her form,
and I don't believe she ever caught on


Like Diogenes with his lamp,
I long for companionship
sans guile, that seeks not
a position of advantage.


The immorality of
his many lies
lay in the cowardice
the lies were
meant to conceal.


Black dresses and flats,
Black suits and shiny shoes;
death, like tennis,
has a dress code.


Frightening himself with tales
of catastrophic bliss,
he twitched, climbed into bed
with his question,
"Whatever will become of me?"


My holographic countenance
seemed to morph
from boyish to elderly;
thin, sweet-faced, then
stoop-shouldered and silver maned.
Another young man taken
by the problems of the ages.


Little glimpses
leaving hunger for more,
poetry draws me into
an other's life:
just because I wasn't there
doesn't mean
I can't recall it.


Heartbreak;
an epiphany that
is highly overrated.


In self-abandonment
was he overwhelmed
by recognition;
"It's important to her."
"It's important to me."


A full moon smirked as
the bay's chill blast
swirled pages and pages
of words through his mind,
like dead leaves off trees.


Before I could understand the words
the melody instructed me in how to feel,
old hungers transformed to arias,
each word winced out as
an apology for itself.


A non-entity with ambitions,
inured to my own strangeness,
being published gave an air of respectability,
the way squirrels are saved
from looking like rodents
by their bushy tails.


In process he found
a self-worth being, then
a self worth becoming, and
a self worth revealing.


May we attain sublime
through fierce devotion
to the required?


Friendships before me,
as a pleasant little stove
casts warmth
through a room.


Parents stewing over
sacrifices made
Children chafed by
saddled guilt;
Love, and generosity
kindled their hearts
to forgiveness.


From my perch
on the edge of distress,
the vista is of relief
from dreamy longings,
of sheltered harbor
and receding horizon
relieving sensations
of dispiriting routine.


In making an amends
what do I do
with a word like inconceivable?


I can go for days
with nothing to say
no, that's not quite true
I just can't say it
to you


It ocurrs to me
some things are not meant
to be undone;
have you ever seen an eraser
on a golf pencil?

And What of Love?

Love?
We've trained it like ivy
          to our walls,
baked it like bread
          (the staff of life)
          in our ovens,
worn it like lead
          on our ankles,
watched it like a Dahl's sheep
          in our sights;
and what of it?
I know not.

Haiku 13

eyes glinting portals
the vastness of starry nights
project light within

Homage to Beauty

What homage shall I pay
     to a beauty built to last
from inside out, executing the blueprints
     of resistance and mercy
darting flashing eyes in soft face
     and clenched fists on hips?

What homage shall I pay
    to beauty insistent on truth
knows that two are not always one?
Beauty that won't deny
     is itself an eye
will not rest under contemplation.

What homage shall I pay
     to beauty at my side?
Your spirits' gaze impatient
     to mark the possible,
     to disregard the improbable,
     back arched to the sublime
- I speak of these now.

Haiku 12

Salmon for dinner?
was his directed query
to the next hostage

Haiku 11

there was so much more
things that needed to be said
No was the answer

Had You Known Me Once

Had you known me once
you might still know me now
though in a different light and life.
And this place is not
          where you know me from
though it should not surprise you
          to find me here, un-concealed.
I feel no longer guilt,
nor shame, unable to hate,
freely choosing now love.

Finding One's Place

It's long, this journey
not measured by time,
distance, space or size.
And though an immense undertaking
is yet a resurrection,
of paths meandering through outer worlds
to reach one's inner place,
a gentle rap required on each door
to find one's own.

Emotional Dexterity

Watch his dexterous handling
of the situation.
That was close. He almost
exposed himself, baring soul,
not to play the role
but to be. . .
human;
to let them see inside.
within the confines of flesh,
the holes he claims to not reside
in a toughened hide.
His tears season a disobedient dream,
tacitly adding agitation
to tumultuous emotions.
Ultimately, all emotions
to expression come,
yet only despair will harden his eyes
and blind him to love.

Ransacking My Memory

I

Could my words rise to counterfeit
taste, or touch or smell?
Within the crucible of poetry,
ransacking my memory
free'd the need for temporal exactitude,
reading and writing, each in turn
refine my experience of life.

While Sleeping

I am sleeping in the next room,
dreaming:
          Enters a woman holding my brain.
          She does not look like a surgeon
          but has the stern, delicate face
          of the one behind her -
          the one carrying my heart.
The man in the next room is tired,
has spent an entire day:
          tilting at windmills,
          searching for Dulcinea,
          recording his emotions as a memorial
          against the forgetfulness of old age;
fearing the day when reading
must substitute for remembering.