foundlings

Orphans : Abandoned Poems Find A Home

I.

Ten Lines

and
i will
with these hands
rummage through the hours
searching for night shadow arms
to wrap comfortable and close over
shiver shoulders like a blanket of stars
to contain the collapsing atoms of a man
born into the bright white bleak light of day
and dying to be cradled in the black of sleep


II.

Oh Mercies'

a natural god and earthly demons
pulling at fibers, the very fabric of my being,
leaving my mind hanging by a thread,
my soul savaged by the same sharp lance
removed from the side of a hysterical and panicked jesus

fruit of the poison tree falling at my feet,
my own eve, vestal and virginal, innocently offering
a snake bit apple bit blindly and opening my eyes
to miseries, mysteries, tell tale signs and oh mercies'
apocrypha spilling from a tongue of fire and sweet damnation


III.

Shifting Sands (Lovers Lost And Long Forgotten)

we are a borrowed line on borrowed time built upon a world's shifting sands

where our words like dust blow away along with our crumbling concrete hearts

to fill deserts with the poets' stolen sonnets for lovers lost and long forgotten


IV.

Strange Currencies

filling the empty spaces of a life with a wealth of literary fragments,

passages plundered from books for which i am the richer man,

fabricated intellectual properties appropriated and counterfeited,

the strange currencies of a fortune found in the folds of fictions


V.

Warm Hearts / Cold Sun

winter won't let go of our coats pulled close

sheltering our warm hearts from a cold sun


VI.

Wolves

wolves watched,

with baited breath

condensing in the cold air of a winter without end

from the bare bones of a scavenged wooded edge,

the wounded animal,

within our sun starved skin

stumbling chaotic circles of an ever-circling skeletal dance

leaving us vulnerable and awaiting the vernal equinox.


VII.

Black Wind

black wind blew hard and bleak for years

out of california to cross the supposed wasteland of the midwest

on east toward and breaking through the appalachian chain

left blind, deaf and dumb in the wake of the fog that followed

its throat choking smoke smothering any sense of self

the taste of hopelessness like sulphur and charcoal upon a tongue

scraped in vain with the dull blade of a childhood pocketknife

given as a gift then taken back along with the promise of better days

indian-given but somehow still ghost-present in a certain quality of light

exposing a memory of expectation more resilient than expected

illuminating a mind fleet of foot and ready to walk through fire

to wander away from fear of failure and everything familiar

a dementia self-imposed, forged to forget guilt and move forward

through black winds blowing hard and bleak for years

freeing this tempest-torn adam to ravish his intended eve

to take leaps of faith beyond childish bible allegory of wandering deserts

a novel idea in hand instead and acting as compass and sextant

to hemingway's spain, hamsun's scandinavia, bukowski's san pedro

high ground hidden in the manifold folds of a postmodern map

relief found in ridges to run between mountains still shifting beneath bare feet

stopping only to bury belief along with the miscarriage of sentimental burdens

discarding ceremony, circumstance and the well-worn path for the thicket

beating back the thorns piercing side and crowning forehead

in search of a breeze as clear as water rattling leaves like tibetan bells

stirring gods from sleep as this ascent hastens up through thin air

and the breath from her last kiss catches fire within charred lungs

the final accelerant to push above the treeline and embrace the western sun

chemical orange, pink, purple, red carried in the womb of a tempra blue sky

birthing a notion to breathe deep the clean, the clear, the calm

heir apparent and armed with a new sense of self

assured despite everything surrendered along the way to a black wind

the waving hand atop a summit like a flag above a wasteland conquered


VIII.

Bird From Snow

little hands so cold

fashioning a bird from snow

our warm hearts take wing