To A Sea Uncertain
I gave myself to the river,
walked out of the rushes,
waded deep the rush,
laid myself supine
in her currents
never pulled
by the moon
but led along
by instinct alone,
afraid no more to let
nature take her course
and me to a sea uncertain
Showing posts with label The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea. Show all posts
Friday, May 27, 2011
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
The Stars Hold No Rain
Grow 'til tall.
I will carry you
even after you are.
The trees protect us,
so climb, reach for the clouds,
the stars hold no rain for saplings to suckle.
Stand on my shoulders
and pocket the open sky
to keep in your cedar box.
Even the sun sleeps,
so close your eyes and dream,
the night holds the tomorrows you awake older.
Grow 'til tall.
I will carry you
even after you are.
The trees protect us,
so climb, reach for the clouds,
the stars hold no rain for saplings to suckle.
Stand on my shoulders
and pocket the open sky
to keep in your cedar box.
Even the sun sleeps,
so close your eyes and dream,
the night holds the tomorrows you awake older.
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
All Animals (I-VII)
All animals,
fossil futures'
muffled humming beneath the weight
of sediment and stone, quietly churned
to oil
Our lamps light landscapes,
the dark of day broken
by a bowl of starlight -
the missing mass of matter
found in filaments of galaxies -
dead and buried we join the soil,
a final bedrock resting place
To lie down
with a thousand dead horses
in the fields of Little Big Horn,
To sink down
with remnants of mastodons
in the asphaltum of La Brea's pits,
To fall down
with the weakest of an elk herd
in the dead, dark of Alaskan winter
Burn the last of what is left,
tall stands, hardwood mausoleums
of organic communion where
the time of Christ is marked
with rings,
just the same as yours or mine
The birds know no religion,
but fly closer to Heaven
than those who pray,
tame the beasts
for burden,
though a name for all
enslaves not even a single one
Our songs,
our books,
our tools,
our science,
our religion,
our progress
All impermanent,
as all animals succumb to time,
and we are only one of many
despite our imagined dominance
All animals,
fossil futures'
muffled humming beneath the weight
of sediment and stone, quietly churned
to oil
Our lamps light landscapes,
the dark of day broken
by a bowl of starlight -
the missing mass of matter
found in filaments of galaxies -
dead and buried we join the soil,
a final bedrock resting place
To lie down
with a thousand dead horses
in the fields of Little Big Horn,
To sink down
with remnants of mastodons
in the asphaltum of La Brea's pits,
To fall down
with the weakest of an elk herd
in the dead, dark of Alaskan winter
Burn the last of what is left,
tall stands, hardwood mausoleums
of organic communion where
the time of Christ is marked
with rings,
just the same as yours or mine
The birds know no religion,
but fly closer to Heaven
than those who pray,
tame the beasts
for burden,
though a name for all
enslaves not even a single one
Our songs,
our books,
our tools,
our science,
our religion,
our progress
All impermanent,
as all animals succumb to time,
and we are only one of many
despite our imagined dominance
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
The River Before Me
To ford the river before me
I must consider
the boy who comes after me
His eyes wide, reflecting the great Western Expansion
His features betraying an amalgam of Old World relatives
- Swedes, Germans, Irish, Austrians, Russians, Scots, Brits -
All of whom forded an ocean broad, upon sail and upon steam
Upon the dreams emanating from the headwaters of imagination
A stream of consciousness
I must consider
With this river before me
To ford the river before me
I must consider
the boy who comes after me
His eyes wide, reflecting the great Western Expansion
His features betraying an amalgam of Old World relatives
- Swedes, Germans, Irish, Austrians, Russians, Scots, Brits -
All of whom forded an ocean broad, upon sail and upon steam
Upon the dreams emanating from the headwaters of imagination
A stream of consciousness
I must consider
With this river before me
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
Shining Like Discovery
Jamestown found me,
a lost soul looking for a lost colony
"To belong, to belong, only to belong."
Round and round I had once gone
only to find, to face me again left alone
"To belong, to belong, only to belong."
Until westward ho I went
beyond rain worn memories soaking a soul
"To belong, to belong, only to belong."
The spirit of her auburn sun
shining like discovery for a lost explorer
Jamestown found me,
a lost soul looking for a lost colony
"To belong, to belong, only to belong."
Round and round I had once gone
only to find, to face me again left alone
"To belong, to belong, only to belong."
Until westward ho I went
beyond rain worn memories soaking a soul
"To belong, to belong, only to belong."
The spirit of her auburn sun
shining like discovery for a lost explorer
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
A Rhyme, A Round (Rain, Rain Come Again)
Rain, rain comes
then goes away
Souls swim the sky
in its damp aftermath
Green beyond green soaked
and almost glowing
From a covered porch
we wait for last lightning
Thunder heading on and up
the unsuspecting coast
Sun finds her smile
and squints upon thick air
Spirits sing a rhyme, a round
of rain, rain come again
Rain, rain comes
then goes away
Souls swim the sky
in its damp aftermath
Green beyond green soaked
and almost glowing
From a covered porch
we wait for last lightning
Thunder heading on and up
the unsuspecting coast
Sun finds her smile
and squints upon thick air
Spirits sing a rhyme, a round
of rain, rain come again
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
Up Upon Air
I have walked on and on
until levitation took my heels
and lifted them up upon air without
weight or any inference I did not belong
amidst the wings, wind, mountains, and souls
I once found myself earthbound below grounded by
mortality, gravity and a confidence hidden by the clouds
I have walked on and on
until levitation took my heels
and lifted them up upon air without
weight or any inference I did not belong
amidst the wings, wind, mountains, and souls
I once found myself earthbound below grounded by
mortality, gravity and a confidence hidden by the clouds
Thursday, May 26, 2011
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
Map Of My Blood (A Sanguine Atlas)
Lost somewhere in the map of my blood
forming memories from farm landscapes -
The Upper Peninsula's
Apple orchards picked before frost's kiss,
Cotton fields' soft white
in the fading, insect-bit light of Arkansas,
Pecan trees shook empty
in the dusty broom sweep of West Texas
Florida's citrus handpicked
by weathered, worn hands of immigrants
- Fruits found in their labors somehow
informing the folds of a sanguine atlas
Lost somewhere in the map of my blood
forming memories from farm landscapes -
The Upper Peninsula's
Apple orchards picked before frost's kiss,
Cotton fields' soft white
in the fading, insect-bit light of Arkansas,
Pecan trees shook empty
in the dusty broom sweep of West Texas
Florida's citrus handpicked
by weathered, worn hands of immigrants
- Fruits found in their labors somehow
informing the folds of a sanguine atlas
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
Mercy's Kiss
I break beyond me,
I break wide open -
my bloodied, swollen tongue dragging
back roads that lead to dark, damp woods
where the bodies lie dead beneath dirty leaves
their ghosts still begging, bartering for mercy's kiss
- I turn a deaf ear,
I turn a blind eye
I break beyond me,
I break wide open -
my bloodied, swollen tongue dragging
back roads that lead to dark, damp woods
where the bodies lie dead beneath dirty leaves
their ghosts still begging, bartering for mercy's kiss
- I turn a deaf ear,
I turn a blind eye
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
A Body of Water Evaporating
... fog emotions;
you cannot see what
I have hidden
between skin and bone,
between blood and the beating
that keeps these feelings
alive and willing
to wander alone
landscapes
I have carved from intuition,
where haze burns slowly off
above a body of water
evaporating...
... fog emotions;
you cannot see what
I have hidden
between skin and bone,
between blood and the beating
that keeps these feelings
alive and willing
to wander alone
landscapes
I have carved from intuition,
where haze burns slowly off
above a body of water
evaporating...
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
Reaching For A Heaven We Already Hold In Our Wandering Hearts
A pilgrimage across
strange topography,
unnamed,
uncharted,
unbeknownst
to your bright eyes,
to my curiosity's survey.
Jaguar shadows
follow our bushwhacked,
beaten back, Braille deer paths -
they inform the light breaking above, upon, beyond
the ridge our compass thoughts desire to reach before dusk.
The trees stand with their crucified limbs before us
reaching for a heaven we already hold in our wandering hearts.
A pilgrimage across
strange topography,
unnamed,
uncharted,
unbeknownst
to your bright eyes,
to my curiosity's survey.
Jaguar shadows
follow our bushwhacked,
beaten back, Braille deer paths -
they inform the light breaking above, upon, beyond
the ridge our compass thoughts desire to reach before dusk.
The trees stand with their crucified limbs before us
reaching for a heaven we already hold in our wandering hearts.
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
Map The Stars By Counting Birds
map the stars
by counting birds
your night eyes nest
beneath a blanket
the moon lights
the day's last flight
map the stars
by counting birds
your night eyes nest
beneath a blanket
the moon lights
the day's last flight
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
Sudden Ridges, Certain Valleys (To Begin Again And Again)
up ahead,
a rest stop,
a scenic overlook,
the sign in a shutter of light
going by at seventy-five miles an hour
says so
we are tired,
light is falling orange
out our back window
and we want only the
absence of color
sleep can bring
but on we go,
miles revealing themselves
in sudden ridges,
certain valleys,
in our desire to get back
to where you and I began,
to begin again and again
up ahead,
a rest stop,
a scenic overlook,
the sign in a shutter of light
going by at seventy-five miles an hour
says so
we are tired,
light is falling orange
out our back window
and we want only the
absence of color
sleep can bring
but on we go,
miles revealing themselves
in sudden ridges,
certain valleys,
in our desire to get back
to where you and I began,
to begin again and again
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
Follow The Geography
Mt. Ranier rained fog
on my parade
San Diego blew, blustered,
flustered my best instincts
Pine Ridge poisoned my prairie footsteps
across bad lands bleeding Hepatitis C
Charlotte left lust not lipstick on my collar
as I lay in dawn's gutter
Dallas offered redemption
too wide to embrace for my sling-slung arms
Boston bled me of all my naiveté,
the Charles River flowing between who I was, who I would become
Mt. Ranier rained fog
on my parade
San Diego blew, blustered,
flustered my best instincts
Pine Ridge poisoned my prairie footsteps
across bad lands bleeding Hepatitis C
Charlotte left lust not lipstick on my collar
as I lay in dawn's gutter
Dallas offered redemption
too wide to embrace for my sling-slung arms
Boston bled me of all my naiveté,
the Charles River flowing between who I was, who I would become
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
An Absolom, Not An Abraham, Am I
Swallowed the endless sands
for a son.
The deserts of my dreams
run wild with the rivers I have waded,
weighted.
Arriving
by surviving
cancerous light
carried from another corner
of a universe unaware
I am holding him up
not in sacrifice,
but in adulation.
An Absolom, not an Abraham,
am I.
Swallowed the endless sands
for a son.
The deserts of my dreams
run wild with the rivers I have waded,
weighted.
Arriving
by surviving
cancerous light
carried from another corner
of a universe unaware
I am holding him up
not in sacrifice,
but in adulation.
An Absolom, not an Abraham,
am I.
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
Unmapped
i wander a mirage of geography
ghost cities, phantom landscapes
run my hands through opaque rivers
flush my face in the rouge of urban rust
blacken my palms with the rush of prairie oil
each and every tree a witness to feeling, to thought
boise, bethesda, birmingham
orlando, omaha, oakland
yakima, ypsilianti, yuma
the land runs red beneath my pale skin
the skin turns black beneath a cold sun
lay down with your dead
climb a cloud collapsing
sin can never follow a saint's apparition
walking unmapped in others' memories
i wander a mirage of geography
ghost cities, phantom landscapes
run my hands through opaque rivers
flush my face in the rouge of urban rust
blacken my palms with the rush of prairie oil
each and every tree a witness to feeling, to thought
boise, bethesda, birmingham
orlando, omaha, oakland
yakima, ypsilianti, yuma
the land runs red beneath my pale skin
the skin turns black beneath a cold sun
lay down with your dead
climb a cloud collapsing
sin can never follow a saint's apparition
walking unmapped in others' memories
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
Faits Accomplis
rock broke away from the coast,
tossed in the teeth of gunmetal waves
- here, then there -
until I lost sight of it
the moment left time behind
and all that remained
was the stone-dead-silence
of billions of years
and their aeonian snapshots
of time at a stand-still
marching me all the same toward death,
with no malice, only another moment
awaiting recognition before it too is lost
to the grey, endless fluidity
of geological time,
nothing more profound in store
for similar, inevitable fates
rock broke away from the coast,
tossed in the teeth of gunmetal waves
- here, then there -
until I lost sight of it
the moment left time behind
and all that remained
was the stone-dead-silence
of billions of years
and their aeonian snapshots
of time at a stand-still
marching me all the same toward death,
with no malice, only another moment
awaiting recognition before it too is lost
to the grey, endless fluidity
of geological time,
nothing more profound in store
for similar, inevitable fates
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
As Mutable As
the lake churning outside
below/beyond the bluff,
metaphor stitched surgically
from the inside out
to my internal organs,
where the grind and retreat
of its glacial origins,
the indifference and absoluteness
of its storms,
the vast fog-shrouded infinities
of its horizons,
lie in wait, mimicking movements
of curl, crest, break, collapse
where mood meets emotion
as mutable as quicksilver
framed by panes of glass
the lake churning outside
below/beyond the bluff,
metaphor stitched surgically
from the inside out
to my internal organs,
where the grind and retreat
of its glacial origins,
the indifference and absoluteness
of its storms,
the vast fog-shrouded infinities
of its horizons,
lie in wait, mimicking movements
of curl, crest, break, collapse
where mood meets emotion
as mutable as quicksilver
framed by panes of glass
Monday, May 23, 2011
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
The Raw Of The World
Outside a window,
in the raw of the world
The wind,
a rustle of razors
through new leaves
And spring's
warm rain
waiting to explode
in the wake of thunder applause
Beneath
the ionized air
hovering above,
across green grass, more green
in contrast to a proscenium of grey
As a fox plays the silk light
for its better than even odds
against a rabbit no longer able
to outrun its shadow
Outside a window,
in the raw of the world
The wind,
a rustle of razors
through new leaves
And spring's
warm rain
waiting to explode
in the wake of thunder applause
Beneath
the ionized air
hovering above,
across green grass, more green
in contrast to a proscenium of grey
As a fox plays the silk light
for its better than even odds
against a rabbit no longer able
to outrun its shadow
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea / 2011
The Rivers I Have Hidden From The Sea
Night,
don't end.
Don't
leave me
here,
to face the day
alone.
I paint myself,
in varying colors -
scream red
from a lost mother tongue
of my German blood
buried below layers
of liver-spotted skin,
scar tissue,
and choking veins.
I swallow blue,
spit back the salt of oceans
beyond my understanding -
the black of water yielding
only a scribble of stuttering white
to even the fullest moon.
The eyes of my wife
hold more secrets
than all the depths
with their bone armies
at ease,
mute beneath the rhythm
of the waves' unending lament.
She sleeps,
I dream
and try to fathom the rain
outside falling through darkness,
steady and slow,
but enough to fill a heart
by morning, the suffocation of sleep
stealing night again
from my imagination
full with chalk effigies
of puddled moons
and submerged stars.
Clouds come
cover the sun,
dusk waits impatient
at my wet feet
for the deluge of dark
where art is free to follow
the rivers I have hidden from the sea.
Night,
don't end.
Don't
leave me
here,
to face the day
alone.
I paint myself,
in varying colors -
scream red
from a lost mother tongue
of my German blood
buried below layers
of liver-spotted skin,
scar tissue,
and choking veins.
I swallow blue,
spit back the salt of oceans
beyond my understanding -
the black of water yielding
only a scribble of stuttering white
to even the fullest moon.
The eyes of my wife
hold more secrets
than all the depths
with their bone armies
at ease,
mute beneath the rhythm
of the waves' unending lament.
She sleeps,
I dream
and try to fathom the rain
outside falling through darkness,
steady and slow,
but enough to fill a heart
by morning, the suffocation of sleep
stealing night again
from my imagination
full with chalk effigies
of puddled moons
and submerged stars.
Clouds come
cover the sun,
dusk waits impatient
at my wet feet
for the deluge of dark
where art is free to follow
the rivers I have hidden from the sea.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
