Sometimes a pearl

The whitest flower grows in a sea of mud,
Never seen, never knowing the lips of the sun.
I grew up in a culture of lost relatives,
Finding the ones I didn’t want,
Searching for mystery and what I don’t know;
Looking for John Merrick in all this deformity,
Trying to make my own light,
Trying to glow in the dark,
Trying to get past the hate and anger,
Finding gentle humor, licking a wound -
Sometimes not hurting so much,
Sometimes breath taken in the deep beautiful,
Sometimes a pearl trying to invent
An oyster I like.

(Orriginally published in The Banks of the Little Miami, Vol. 12)

Ringing of the Bards XXIII

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hope



the candle called to the darkness

it was a tedious night

it was half past later

the regime of the night sky was ruling


the regime of the joke

had laughed itself hollow

had drunk every echo

from every light switch

which alternated lost shadows

with corners and halls

like lost kids in malls

like the lost I was feeling

just as


the darkness brightened

Brighter and Wiser

I didn’t know I lived in darkness, who but God could give this light?
The moth needs the candle, who but God could give this light?

I hadn’t seen the world because I lived on the back side of the moon
Suddenly there was you and lots to see, who but God could give this light?

Every night must end; I was dreaming I was sleepless.
Dark brightens when I whisper your name, who but God could make dark bright?

You have seen me naked and ugly. All my deformities are visible.
Your clarity alarms me. Who but God could give all this for sight?

Dumb in the darkness, I knew no better. I also knew no pain.
You illuminate me and I cringe. Who but God could give all this to light?

I know now I was dead in darkness. I need to be healed by your love.
You smile shines like a saving beacon, who but God could shine this light?

Your absence defines what I now know is darkness.
Plunged in awareness between joy and sad, who but God could finally make me bright?

(write your name here)

laughter rings
the circle round
outside the fringe
quiet abounds

my rhymes are futile
transparent as a bottle
empty too

I’m haunted
(snow flake tears)
I’m a ruined castle

you climbed my mountain
you found me
blue and naked
chattering with firs

my breath fogs
it has no meaning
unless I breathe again
for you

Somnambulist

(a 55 word sonnet)

They were ours
before we were born,
they are
the diatribe of slumber.

Words that feel,
flow between
you and me,
and we do not

wake to hear them
sleeping on the bottom
of an undulant ocean
made of silk in the wind.

The silk snags on a thorn
and I awake at your caress.

Getting ready for the coming holliday season with a special show! 

Expectation

The dream didn’t come
Until those little eyes opened.
Possibilities sat vacant
With no reason to consider

Days and days
The ones like yesterday
That run to become tomorrow
Without any heart.

Songs sung from
Frustration and anger
Become sung by love
To close sleepy eyes,

Of someone who matters,
Who is dreaming you matter.

Late night snack

I was hungry for cheese.
I wanted some of that
German white cheddar
flaky, dry and cleansing.
I was also thirsty.

It had been warm
in the day as a
Spanish spring afternoon.
The cap for the cold sat on the table.
The night changed to Russian bedclothes
and snuggled close as darkness.

I wanted borracho;
I wanted to slam dunk
against the skylight of the stars
banging my forehead at
the glass ceiling of the night.
I danced with the cap
and cured the disease of closed.
I shouted my affliction at the night;

I shouted dark words into the darkness
and watched them disappear
knowing I would dance in the day
knowing in my arms
I would find the smell and warmth of you
knowing I am so familiar with
your lips, wordlessly
telling what I am
and me, like a stupid tourist
puzzled and hypnotized
by this strange language
enjoying not to know.

Loss

It seems late to me.
I know it is after that time
when the last rocket of day
sputtered past the horizon
and was gone.

Late is now defined by
how much it is past
that moment the diamond
fell from your eye.


It is late but not very late
still it is past the moment
where I am who I was
and I no longer know
who got trapped in
this glass in front of me.

I feel sorry for him
like a brother who cares
for a fellow victim.
I can’t console him,
I barely have the strength
to even watch.
It is late.