What Adventures Wait for Me?

What adventures wait for me
O distant precious world?
I stand upon a precipice
Cliffs and rocks, ravines and rivers open up before me
An endless view of mountain tops and river basins long dried and dusted and traveled.
So fill the empty bed with words, with songs, with praises, with poetry of scenic beauty I see painted on the faces all around me.

The poet standing next to me who’s rhymes stagnate in the throat and are never set free to vibrate and stimulate; to make to think.

My brother climbing down the rock face; too busy now to think of words to describe the beauty he grabs with his hands and feet.
The living air that brings life into his lungs to fuel his descent.
The smiling and the beating sun, make light and make harder his travels – here so far from shadows.
Perhaps he appreciates their beauty, their life, their gift more than I; I wouldn’t know he’s never told me.

My sister has found the waters far below.
The cool ripples soothe her olive face, is that why she smiles so?
Best not to bother such a contented soul lest a cloud should come to ruin her perfect swim.

What ho, stranger far behind me! Venture forth, for vistas wait to please you.
You are too far back, you will never see from so far away.
Do you not search for beauty?
Do you not search for faces?
Do you not long to reach for that you cannot touch? A view, a scene, a world too big for any man to hold in his hand?
It’s waiting there, stranger and friend. Stand with me we can take in her gifts together.

And you, my father, great grey spirit Whitman standing on the other side. Across the ravine, across the scene you stand as I, pearched on the other end of this beauty.
Is it foolish for me to think we stand together? Above and apart from the world and scenes below, chanting songs of brothers and sisters?
I reach for you my father, too far away to touch
I cast my words into the open air between us hoping to fill the empty space as you taught me to.
Will my words reach you?
Or are you distracted by the beauty?

The Piano

The piano sat in crowded parlor

Hidden beneath a cloud of smoke, light, and noise.

Her song silent, her belly clenched, her keys tense, her petals gripping the solid earth beneath her.

Bodies warmed the air around her and sent vibrations flying

An hour then two she remained silent.

Another glass of wine warms my belly and from that abyss vibrations tingle and spill out in songs and poems never yet sung or spoken; but she tightens her strings and stops the mimic of sound

Her curves are beautiful, her color rich mahogany, her stoic presence a fixture in an otherwise unremarkable room.

Charcuterie now joins the din, and drunker than had I never eaten I feel my face flush with red excitement

Encouragement pours from my brothers and sisters who have cheered me here before

Welcome now I turn and face this instrument

Familiar friend I see your trepidation, never fear I have not forgotten how to play

Your keys and notes are known to me

We share the same vibration

What songs I will make you sing

Silent still I settle down

I sit and make to play, yet there she sits

Calm and unfriendly

How now friend remember me? We once sang songs together

Poems of life and laughter let us tickle them again.

And with that down my fingers press to make a note most sour

Careful friend, I’ll strike again

Another chord perhaps?

Once more out of tune my melody plays, so unmusical a word a phrase a joke a comment a compliment; half of one conversation.

Her body creaks, her body moans, the wood resists my touch

A little care, a little oil, that would do the trick

Too long her body has sat forgotten

Lost beneath light and smoke and noise

Yet who am I?

What I am to force from her her song?

We once sang our songs together; our music made in harmony

What harmony ever came from force?

What song ever sang without harmony?

Her note my note in layered effect each stronger for the other

Never was a note hit that it would rather sing

What ho

What arrogance, what foolishness

Your song was never mine

Your keys can sing, your strings can cry

My finger only foolish phallus fit to stumble cross your spine

Such crude poetics from this poet

A song most beautiful is not fit to sing

for one who does no more than seek the mystery.

Tick Tock the Nagging Clock

Tick tock the nagging clock
chimes another hour.
How did that hour come to pass?
I barely heard it ticking
Gong. Gong.
A sobering reminder of the past
Of the present
Of the future that I’m in.
Spinning unrepentant towards the next…
Gong. gong.
And thus another hour spins.
Thus another hour ends.
Thus another hour dies.
And what have I to show?
One more line?
One more verse?
A better hour to be sure
Perhaps this one was longer.
Gong. Gong.
Your tick tocking nags me now
Your second’s off the beat
Perhaps your metronome could slow…
Gong. Gong.
Another chime already?
But I barely waxed poetic
For the last…
Gong. Gong.
Your chiming turns to crying now
Gong. Gong.
Please stop your chiming
Gong. Gong.
Please stop your ticking
Gong. Gong.
Please. Please. Today cannot be over yet
I didn’t finish anything
I didn’t finish what I started
I didn’t start what I wanted
Stop your chime
Stop your tock
Stop you ticking tocking clock
How many hours passed?
How many days?
How many weeks?
How many poems that curse you
for the genius you have stolen?
Thus the life of this day ends
With seconds hanging on,
But you mock you wretched clock
Gone. Gone.

Today I witnessed the birth of a city

Today I witnessed the birth of a city
The rising sun spilling new life across vacant streets and silent buildings.
Silence. Such precious silence.
But the sun rises higher
If I could cut the thread that pulls Apollo
And leave him suspended right where he is
A haunting glow that is the line between yesterday and today.
Disappointments of yesterday are gone, disappointments of today are yet to be,
And here in the middle there is nothing but silence and promise.

Oh dreamers dream
And sand men sleep
Wake not old city, slumber on and grant me silence
Yet one step forward
One inch higher
He climbs
He brightens
And the hour chimes to provoke my city.
Silence breaks with the crash of horns and howls that brought you to my city.
In that noise my old city becomes your new.

Today I witnessed the birth of a city
How beautiful when it was born
For that was when it was mine.

Poison!

Poison! Poison! Poison!

I swallowed you now get thee out

Of hands and legs and abdomens that weaken with your vile effect!

Your forced ingestion never welcomed now boils in my gullet

polluting thoughts with angry righteousness.

Perhaps you poured into my ears

Sweet at first to hide your purpose;

Perhaps you slipped in through an open maw

Disguised as nectar worth consumption;

Perhaps I always saw you for what you were

And allowed you passage,

But now you’ve taken hold and taken charge

What’s the profit in swallowing poison?

Am I stronger?

It would have been better had I not learned your secrets at all.