October 2, 2012

poem 360 of a poem a day for 2012




the moral lighthouse of a shipwrecked life

the coming to pass
of chances taken
or left at the wayside
of my humanity invents
a new kind of wheel every time
only I use them to roll away
all the undesirable in me
to burn myself at the outliers
to rack my civilized brick
and mortar tendencies
to erode in the rain
my raw rasped parts
my neon concrete boredom
blinking its puzzling decisions
amid snaps and crackles
each one a twig underfoot
the breaking of habits and bread
in the neo-cortex-ual shedding
of responsibility
outside of pleasure
where I find the keys
were once broken bones

sure my memory wants to hold onto
to its DNA encoding protein sequences
which pieces of sunshine and moonlight
happened to have seared themselves enough
to a moment to smell what remembering it
has burned into something more instinctual
the light patterns in the cranium synapse forest
are what maples are doing too in Autumn
falling into fires with jangling bottom chimes

I have three pennies, a few dimes and
a quarter that is bicentennial faded smooth
hope has moved into my sweat
doesn’t want an exit strategy
because like me, it has adapted
to living on the edges of things
do words come
when the song is the silence
in the absence of seed birds
who left in August
who have flown southbound to perch
and pick flowers along the way
to the Pampas grasslands and Valdivian Forests
of Argentina and Chili
the southern Springs are calling
their ghosts are in magnetic play
they say hollow bones
and deep feathered yearn
can stop time
when the wind and the warm air
take hold of the sky with kites  
and the sweet rise of something else
that starts to bloom

this is my effigy to the Sun
the caramel decay
of deciduous sugar bleeding
into the hot iron call
that sayslet me
mouth the words
Summer lady
come back to us please
we have jarred you
and need you
to keep us through
your dark womb again
we will sizzle and lean
into your absence
we are more than willing
to let the shadows shape
the silence
which is why we bring pine boughs
inside our homes
to commune with your memory
to eat what used to be green
while the dry cold desert
of Winter is raging
outside the caught tide
of frost and glass

I am walking slowly along
with my few coins
and a well of wishes
in my pockets  
tossing overboard
any passing ship of time
I can from the cages I make
with bread ties and
some illustrated words
in blue and black ink
pressed maple leaves inside
the writing
done with diminished light
and scribbled crooked letters
and reversible destinies
are the many parts 
and many tales I hatch
for every reason 
beyond explanation
inheriting my lust
between sips
and old shells
in the coffee

I search in vain
for belly wane Moon
She’s on the other side
of these endless clouds
socked against clay and shale  
their smooth fog
is my desire
back lit enough
to thank Her
with a faint glow

I thank Her
for all that I can let go of
for Her infinite number
of sharp tiny embraces
releasing me into the old vines
I am bending low enough
to find myself
cupped in Her hands
are my ears tuned enough
to hear the birds
that might still be sleeping
as they remain
in the brown grasses
and the royal seed courts
of the annuals of October
I am hoping they can
still make a sound
that might be near enough
a song of mine
so that I can write
without thinking
without asking for directions
to find somewhere
someplace
someone inside me
that might be warm
enough to sing
the cling
of my hands to

EJR ©

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