Prodigal

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.

Shelter

Sept. 18: Dangerous conditions today on the Tennessee River.

The wind struggles with the current; the water churns behind the pylons.

Even the sky is in turmoil.

 

I am the surface of the water. I am broken; a fractured frame of glass,

stretched thin from shore to shore. All I can hear is the wind tearing

upstream, toward my home.

 

The furniture in the living room rearranges to accommodate the flood.

Soon we will live in an aquarium with glass walls, so all can see:

we are bent by the current.

 

(Slowly, with time)

 

5:35 pm; I can hear the blood pulsing in the veins behind my ears.

The wind has died down, and all besides that steadfast throb is quiet.

I am alive; I am a being.

Copper Symphony

A candle shines through the doorway. My fingers still hold a smoldering wick, burning my skin like a glove. “I am home,” I say, to no one in particular – maybe the bricks need to hear it. My shadow dances opposite the flame across their mason-faces. I am a mirror to the naked world.

Above my head, behind me, there is a window. Against it beats rain softly, caressing the glass and whispering of colder weather. It is still in this room, where the candle twists. The music has stopped. My piano lies dormant and expectant. I do not think sound is necessary, here.

Flame: incessant and full of mirth. It spreads beneath the carpet and behind the walls. My body feels no heat, but the candle I see bows and rises excitedly. The air changes; charged. If I were a storm, I would have lightning for arms. Rise. Stand. My feet glow with electricity. I cannot tell you whether it is my hands or the tongues of flame that bring the piano to life, but there is music with the laughter of a fiddle.

An island forms outside the window, as the rain builds up worlds on the pavement. What wonders there are in autumn! My fingers rest; my reflection stands to make amends while I admire the candle in the other room.

From the Valley

There is an ancient hum, here,

left by the grave of budding industry.

Here, where the cliffs of Signal and Lookout

are our overseers and protectors:

those mountains with degraded

nobility: now common hills on the brink

of Appalachia.

 

1994: I dreamed I would be the first man

            to see the valley from Signal’s peaks.

Insurmountable peaks. Lofty dreams.

Then came the automobile,

and today foreigners summit by way of gasoline;

I sit in quiet protest, as the hum spreads to

heights formerly unmolested.

 

Mount Everest: the top of the world!

Only a blemish on the Earth’s face,

some day will be a scar.

 

And then there is the ocean:

beautiful degrader! Eroder!

Leveler and humbler of all exalted heights!

The crashing of wave after wave after wave

and the soil falls into the depths

and the ice sheets splinter and crack,

the land is retreating, and they say

the water is warming, reefs are dying and

soon there will be no more land

and we must learn to live underwater.

War! Treachery! The flags are raised

and still the ocean swells tear

sand into the darkness.

 

Early morning: the sunrise.

Between the mountains, the leaves

produce a green glow – each a flag of peace

waving as if to say, we will not give in –

as the sun shines through into Lookout Valley.

A wood thrush is on my windowsill,

drowning out an ancient hum.

Fault Lines

For a moment Atlas grew weak,

I found what I seek and left it behind.

Stones rolled, broke and replicated;

the sun devoured clouds dripping

 

the sweat of worry

poured out on the dry soil.

 

The foundation falters.

I am standing on nothing, but I am standing.

 

I looked into your simpering eyes

as the ground opened beneath us

and we fell and we felt free, smiling.

 

Hands clasped. Desires clashed.

We fell and we stood on nothing,

but we stood as we fell.

 

Our toes brush the bottom like a shallow lake.

The moon jumps from sky to water and back,

and still Atlas wavers, the foundation cracking.

 

I don’t know these words we say,

but I’m not afraid.

Beneath Birch Saplings

Blinded as we pull back the curtains.

A sigh from the sill

as we lift the window, caressed

by a breath of outside.

 

The smell of newborn blooms

mingling with the rust

of the screened-in porch.

Warmth.

 

Sight returns. Sunshine.

The floor is agape with it,

the waves of it lapping

against our ankles

while the daffodils on the sill

twist their roots in ecstasy.

 

We lay on the floor,

and grass sprouts

between the tiles,

cracking the boards.

 

We run our fingers through,

and through the blades

as if they were the hair of a lover;

We bury our faces in the scent of it.

A Year of Mornings

Sheets blue and lined by the impressions of raindrops on the window, hardly thick enough to keep out the cold. My skin tingles at the touch of the fabric and warm words whispered by a fleshless voice. Eyes open slowly, faintly; vision touching the walls illuminated by a sun grinning through clouds and rain. I could laugh at the stillness of the air here, behind the windows, when outside the wintry branches wave naked fists in the wind.

The pads of my feet aren’t calloused enough to ignore the spring of grass leaping into the sun. I bury my toes in the sponge of soil, tapping my fingers to the percussion of snapping roots. Looking up, I can’t help but to laugh with the chorus of new growth. Thick air born of bark and budding branches caresses me in a wordless expression of rejoicing and being.

I can trace the lines left behind the lights in the towns below me as they go out. A light here, to the east, goes out just as the hum of electricity bursts in a home, miles west of it – both homes lit by the same lines. Children laugh as fathers tell stories and believe that all is well. I lie in the grass beneath gathering clouds and let my clothes soak up last night’s rain, wondering when the voiceless whisper will speak again.