July 25, 2012

poem 251 of a poem a day for 2012





as my loadstones crumble

I am leaving behind
all that trapped
in the mountains jazz
and slaking my horns
through my lush slow tipped death
whispered in the mixed pines
and tall hardwoods
of the northern deciduous forests
with the end of July
beginning its 
yellow bleeding
into the wind

I am jumping between
lightning strikes
into the open shale mouth
of a ravine cut into the spine
of the granite perch I was on
a storm came up
as most often do here
as quick as a blink
as I was overlooking a small lake

the smell of burnt air
was inescapable
too heavy to ignore
I could close my eyes
and still smell death
waiting from above
to complete another circuit

this is where my fears paint
in this space between
the desire of fog rising to fill
and the leap of faith needed
when unfulfilled promise
is gathering mass and forging
new links into chains

I am a rattled hesitancy
and I am dragging
my stubborn will, everywhere
my petulance against change
can arrange every sound
into a moan
that doesn’t know
how to smile
in the dark

I close my eyes anyway
and fear paints fast
a milliard cut away scenes
moving past me 
in x-ray animation
skeletal Indians in head dresses
and misty stoned expressions
seem sad and waiting 
as if the stirred pot
of my Universe wants me
to embrace the storm as passage
and this sacrament of blood
is the iron fires
of my cage-calling for any home
that might have me

in a land uncertain of vision
I am red-shifting ideas
to hide them from momentum
to stuff them onto trains
that pass the depots with only
their mail hooks out
wanting more words from me
more of my near empty to carve
more acknowledgement that my compass
no longer works in my clever hands

I can turn anything
into a ghost these days
ever searching for
the glory smile of night
to put back into my soul
or at least to know
how to drink from
the silhouettes of cups
pitch-forking remnant delicacies
of tabled things
I actually believe
I deserve to enjoy
at this turn-feast 
of the Wheel
in prayer
before I open
my mouth
so that I 
might find
myself
with my nose
alone

EJR ©

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