Beneath the red eaves
a spider’s-web sail unfurls
leeward, boughs bending
Moss shimmers silver
old Sol sets in the branches’
autumn silhouette
I lie under leaves
the sanctuary above
earthen priest below
roam the twilit road
lined with juniper halos
ever-gold porchlight
the sun rises thrice
through the rhododendron tree
city of windows
And so we dodge the rain-soaked
leaves as they fall – or we don’t;
regardless we approach the wallpaper-houses
plastered with autumn’s gore. We shed
the decay only to don this thin
skin naked to the stale heated air.
Here we sing the refrain “Amen, come
Thou long expected Jesus, come.”
December, you are the clothesline of souls
strung above the hearth. Above the fire
we drip with rain until we are clean,
dry and we with our voices are thin.
Silent night. We have no say in the matter.
We slide into our places around the table
swift and silent as brush strokes
and the paint sighs as we
conform to the image.
The year is done. We lay out its contents
on the table – a keepsake cornucopia:
drink deep the honeycomb
of the name we share.
Oh, holy night! What joy, what rich honey
swells from the tongues of unbound hands
and unfurled lips. Wreathed in holly
and spruce, the orange and red hues
of the Blessed Virgin and Son stoop down
to share our bread and wine.
How odd that Grandfather’s stories
of the War to End All Wars
seem so bright, tonight.
How right though, too.
The port is still. The rain lays down
the restless remains of ship-wakes.
Not a thick rain; vague, like the dust
from grade-school chalkboards.
I run from east to west along Jericho Beach
toward the Pacific, which I’ve never seen.
Not really.
The clouds unfurl, sweeping across the masts –
the harbor is a shadowbox. The bow lights
shimmer in halos through the rain
and reflect from cloud-bottom to sea
and back again. Our shadowbox world
is small.
May we find peace in the periphery.
Perhaps we have looked up too often.
Perhaps the clouds teach us aspirations
more befitting to our human nature
than flight. If we are dust after all, how can we
return once we’ve left the dust behind?
We are nothing!
We are nothing
if not married to the ground.
A couple stands on the beach, pointing
to the prows anchored to the seabed,
content to keep their feet dry.
I haven’t written a poem in four months. I haven’t written a song in four years. This is probably a bit rough, considering how long it’s been, but the lyrics came to me while listening to Shovels and Rope walking back from class. Enjoy, and feel free to critique, post thoughts, or praise. I like praise; administer it liberally.
I’m on a long walk home I don’t want to make,
the heat of the day makin’ my bones quake.
I’m shootin’ looks into every gap and alley
seeing men countin’ days, and every mark and tally
sayin’ I’ve got more steps ahead than I can take.
I can’t smell the roses above the compost,
I can’t hear music the way it’s composed.
The sun’s under cover for fear I’ll discover
she’s naked with the moon under silk covers,
hidin’ shame for what she is when she leaves her post.
But if for one brief moment I could see the sun
just long enough to let me find someone
who’ll let me know
I’m not alone,
well, maybe it’ll be alright.
I’m chasin’ demons off a mountain I never knew was mine;
achin’ for a fence so I can work to pass the time
and secure a destiny that’s been set down from the start.
Damn! This life of ours could be a work of art
once we bathe in the Jordan at Zion’s borderline.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you: external peace, internal war.
What you hear in my chest belies the footfalls on the floor:
the steps I take into the door of my childhood home.
It’s the opposite of hell but heaven’s let me roam
until I, the prodigal, returned to knock and enter the door.
And if for one brief moment I look the other way,
I’d see a long path and hear somebody say,
“I’ll let you know
you’re not alone.”
Well, baby, it’ll be alright.
The sky has closed in on me, presenting a grey shroud as if it were a much-anticipated birthday gift. “Happy New Year, now be subdued.” It is dark and I am tired both from lack of sleep and dreams that have haunted me like a helpless child just out of reach; haunting for sixteen months without relief.
She is a familiar spirit visiting me for some sin of which I’m yet unaware. The lodestone of my heart; I am doomed time and time again to have my decks shattered upon the rocks only to have them rebuilt and redisconfigured.
9:25 am. A newspaper wakens me to a new year and alerts me to the successful relationship of ——- and —— and my mind is glad but my heart pulls the grey shroud from the sky and wraps it round like a blanket, tight as the grave.
Had I known ten years ago where I’d sit today, would I have set the same course? Would I have chosen safer seas, free of sirens and mysteries?
I do not know.
All I know is that any glimpse of land is more mirage than reality. We few ships on this endless sea flash code through the night. We ask each other and the stars whether we made a mistake in choosing not to winter in safe havens. The ice is packing, screeching as it collides and closes in with the sky until our sails will be torn, our masts broken, and I will have landfall –
either on the rocks, the ice or the ocean floor.
pilgrim 