Projections

Single file, like in the native's way
to hide numbers and mourn in a slow peace.

The leftover and forward
once again make sign to a favorite son.

They pause and worship a clay idol,
as much contrite as devoted.

Forgive me friend their eyes say,
"I was not there".

Or, forget me friend,
"There was more than I could handle".

The idol responds to the
deep wishes of their heart,

projecting back upon the somber
all that they desire.

They will carry now a piece,
each a piece of the pain

and nurture a wound in proportion
to what their projection's demand.

Indebted

When once I approach a bridge
I mount my fear by extending my hand,
as I did with my father years ago.
We approached a grated expanse

and I implored he catch me should I fall.
Safely then on the other side,
he having held me the entire way,
I knew I was forever indebted.

I still don't like bridges
and I don't like admitting
that something scares me,
but I hate that debt most of all.

Raise eyes

To raise eyes,
maiming ageless weight
and expectation.
It is the inevitable rebellion
of appreciation.

It is worth it...
To curse the eye and
to press the light.

And when the 
wanton nothing
bristles as 
boldness refuses the lash...
Oppression?...
He remains the liar 
we despise.

Resignation to a certain fact

It's intrepidity,
is resignation to a certain fact.
But it's haunting, too.

A countenance negated,
when for once a blank stare lives
as the mind in that moment,
with all blood let
and costly service rendered.

There is no roadmap for spells
concluding enduring sagas,
and the intrepid know that.

I'll admire from afar
and wonder on the strength of
those survivors as they quarter
amid the spent minefield.

They might say there is
no strength in tattered ends,
	all life is a process
	of will and action.

They might say that standing still
in the face of the unmitigated
is an admission of human frailty.

Respectively, I say:
	Let me admire.
	Let me reflect.

Stillness is strength

especially in the hour of the unmitigated.

Flirty bird

I fought this poem the entire way and, as usual, the poem won:

The chirp of the flirty bird curls lightly on the flesh--
and they who hear 
absorb the vibrant end
of the birdy's sonic thread.
Apart from the howl
and hoot,
in a parcel of ample space,
the sweet bird embraces
a rhythmic tufted bop
and binds the living race.

the Vapors

We'd get so high,
project the foolish
and let the vapors
run us ragged.
Our incantatory 
howling an
extension of
iridescent smoke
plumes.
Parched and
pining, we'd
sip sublimonade
from circus spouts
and own up to
the awful,
as our tempers 
would allow.

The act of
incinerating
barriers
lovers never
broach is wild
work.
Those days are
of a kind
safer minds 
may never know. 

Wishing when

I spent my life
wishing when,
that spell whistling
at my heart.
A tug,
a tear,
and all the frosty drag it holds.

That bitter cold
a balm that numbs,
and reflecting
that a feeling
is more than
some quiet alone.

I accept that
ever after is
nevermore;
these things ourselves
tell us
that then shed
rhythmically asunder.

Each beat is a probe.
Our heart,
it's faithful prole.

And tomorrow,
as well as
all to follow,
will the frigid
beg for friction
and I beg alike?

Unearned burden

Let no being carry the unearned burden, 
rife with the compaction of endless wrongs.
Hoisted on hollow and growing bones,
forcing their shape into something hideous.

This hellish load,
wrought of all those wrongs.

To be

To be, to be,
that poor weakness,
to be.
Starting each day anew seeking to be,
but starting with deficits.
And so,
being only harshly.
Farther down that road will they travel
until being is defined by the detestable. 

To be devoid of fear or never to be at all.

Tiny jealousies?

I wrote this piece in the spirit of fun, however, the more I read it the more it rings true.

Crab!, Shakespeare, faceless man.
He is not a hero, but an ideal.
The reservoir of all our dreams.
The dream of the pen wielder
and key striker and notator
and all others who observe and record.

The funny dread

The beast, it takes its fill.
Mother frowns and shakes her till.

And...

there the mites are a'mourning.
Trembling few,
ensconced in warning.

The funny dread of complicit rage
be the muted distress 
of every age.

And we,
you and me all the while
bear benefit and burden
with lacquered smile.

As for those who fight
we may wonder on their lives:
if their struggle be a light?
Or but a flippant lie?

Moment after the moment

There is a moment 
after the moment
when all reside
with self.
The excuse that enervates
wanes 
under its own gravity.
And all the compulsion
that sells
evaporates 
like the joy
of so many fleeting beats.
But this life,
judged always and everywhere
as if chosen,
is not joy in form.
It is the catharsis --
	the release of the unwished for
	and eternally unbecoming.

Watch even as they wield the grand attempt,
so unobservant where the
passion spreads thickly.

Curses!  For the moment
after the moment
when the energy that
enervates dies
its trivial death.

No bard

Style myself a bard? No.
At least not of the inspirational tones.

No soul, no super human form will ever
fill my work with joyful praise.

There are sights to see, 
no more,
no less.

Connecting -- only to make of this life a lucid whole.

Stand up and be counted

Take a look at the world around you
and start to add up the absurdities.
Before long you might find yourself
like the Indian King, the victim of 
an inescapable exponential progression.

Absurdities are not all.  There are 
people and places and individual 
circumstances that combine to form a
hefty dinner dressing.  The feast of
large numbers of which every person
is a part in some manner or other. 

Dissect and diagram your life according
to the irrevocable power of these
numbers and see them as the harbinger 
of the only permanence you will ever
know.  You are a part of them now,
the glowing figs of the existence tree,
and part of them you shall remain.

Beyond birth and life and the countless
tears and breaths, mistakes, 
misunderstandings and triumphs, hearts
captured and minds repelled.  None that
mean nothing, save for the permanence
that comes with being among the 
counted; that results from being among
the being.

Somehow this being is the being of "why,"
so often puzzling and scorned.  The being
of how, where, when, who and what. 

As to why? Because counted you were.  
And how? In the manner of the moment.  
Where? With those counted alike.
When? In your time.
Who? You -- among the rest.

What?  Counted is all.