and then

under a pregnant sky
she vies for the succinctly still
for the moment just before it all breaks loose
and the moment before that
when you smell the rain but don't yet hear it
when you feel the pain but do not fear it
and then the gymnopedie
and then
and then
the mind in pacing
the body in bracing
tinctures of tension
and tonics of tumult
and reckless
reckless
reckless
and then
and then
the drowning
the breathing
the flying
and falling
and then
the mercury
moulder
melancholy
and then
and then

September Crickets

With the urgency of boreal fecundity

let us prick our souls and hasten the blooming summer

let us lap, and lap, and lap

insisting like westerly waves of Gitche Gumee

to make landfall, to make love all

enveloping and awash in soaking saturation

and then stop.

Freeze the frame and hold

hold

hold

in instinctive heroic futility

of resistance to the moving tectonics of time

the grinding, grabbing and whittling

the glacially irresistible power and motion

of forces so much larger than ourselves

hold and hold

for soon we will cry in our last voices like September crickets

for a day just one more.

russet leaves falling
blown by breath of life and death
soaked in bloody frost

What the lights told me

The sky pulsed and quivered
as I stood looking up
into the bosom of Aurora Borealis --
dancing without inhibition
or desire for an audience
but simply for the joy of  being
of illuminating
of showing
of shining
and I ached
to partake
in the fullness of experience
that proclaims an absence
of artifice
and then, succumbing
my thoughts raced for another
to validate the experience of me
while the seething lights shamed
and continued their admonishment
to blend, to go blank, and to be.

Unequally Yoked

The Wedded Rocks (Meoto Iwa), just off-shore, close to Ise Shinto (The Holy City or Capital of the Kami) shrine in Mie Prefecture, Japan. These are the “Husband and Wife Rocks,” a Shinto shrine representing the union of creator kami (deities) Izanagi and Izanami, and thereby celebrate the sanctity of marriage between man and woman.The larger rock is said to be the male rock, and has a small torii, or sacred purifying entrance, at the top. It is known as Oiwa. The male rock measures 9 meters tall and 40 meters around; the female rock is 3.6 meters high and 9 meters around. The female rock is known as Meiwa.

Calculus of Regret

my aches are older
deeper, more indelible
precautionary

new apparatus
valuing a back-up chute
freshly wiser, old

plumbing heights and depths
measurement of tolerance
calculus of regret

Drivin' & Cryin'

Split

Amazonas

A red dragonfly
a pink dolphin
an exquisite yellow fruit
and green and blue above.
The Amazon
is dark and brooding
stained with ancient stories
of a stern and sultry
mistress.

Signatures

Falling in to our mother's tears

filleting our hearts

finding a passage through fear and

failing but signing

signatures on souls and solemn

symbols and falling

falling

falling.

Hang on.

Sacrificial soothing

soma again

so much 

so when

we hear that siren

we will know

our mirrors

and until we have faces

we will have tears.

Rachel in Joplin

Last Loyalty Lost

I followed familiar footpaths
to find her this last time
this once more
this only
this
last
loss
last loyalty
last casualty
last cost
last call
of the grail
of the ark
of the Gospel
of the heart
of the greatest of my signs
and the bruising of my shins
of the fern beds in the pines
the sadist and the sins
of the thirst for this elixir
and seduction on the wind
of the shapes that still define her
all familiar, take me in
take me in
take me in
take me
one
last
time.

After three days

Dome of the Rotunda of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem.  KG Tidball.

After three days

the world was fixed 

in an orbit

from which it cannot

escape.

Bon Iver - Towers (Official Music Video) from Bon Iver on Vimeo.

Abandoned

strange assemblage
wheels, backseats and radios
lost utility

fleeting glimpses
absent, coming, going
a few moments more

ball dresses falling
float into heaps on the floor
disrobing Autumn

The Spoils of Silently Watching

Arising before dawn in ritual pursuit
aware of austerity, sharp, acute
a chill that has settled
and defines for a time
the spoils of silently watching.

As the hoary frost on crimson leaves
succumbs to the center,
succumbs to the sun
as ice becomes rain
and the dew is undone
and the bluest of blue
frames vivid prisms spun
of the thread of a love
fleetingly grasped
desperately held
and quickly lapsed
into seeking again
into hoping for when
that moment will lend
less furtively.

Retiring at dusk from the ritual pursuit
aware of austerity, dulled but astute
exhaustion has settled
and defines for a time
the spoils of silently watching.

The moment I said it

Chasse

Sleeping, sluggish, a dormant desire

is drawn from the dog days of summer-

as the front is unfolded

the summer defrocked

I return from a lazy warm slumber.

And the creak of the hasp

and the shake of the aspen

spark dreams of October fire.

And the velvet glance

and the cyclic dance

an alluring chance to conspire.

Rising, alert, an ancient urge

springs forth from a change in the weather

it will not relent

breathing deeply the scent

of the chase and the blood stained tether.