Saturday, December 31, 2011

Reflections on a moment

Enshrouded

Bedded in fog, so often is the past.
Even the coming of the future,
So is draped in darkened mists.
Vision becomes obscured,
And what we see:
An end or a beginning?
So a single drop...
Then life.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Along a seawall

                           The S
                                    T
                                      E
                                        P
                                          S

The clouds are forming from the north;
And as draperies drawn about a window,
So are they, bringing with them the darkness
              and a cutting wind
Which rips at the rigging of White Wine
              secured in her berth,
         tucked behind the breakwater.

The evening out over the coast
In its coming usually is accompanied
             by tranquility.
But this night only courts the frustrated fury
             of the hammering surf
        gutting the beaches.

But even the varied pilings strewn in the surf
Remain as testimonials that the waters
             may for a brief moment
Breach their mark, only to find their grip short;
             And having exhausted their strength,
        they are resigned to withdraw.

To the east, the clouds are as dirty mats being beat out.
While to the south, there is a faint orange hue...
And at the steps at the bayou,
Thoughts I ponder, only to give them up
             to the tide in flight
And the curling wavelets entrancing my eyes;
And comes an understanding of the homes alight
Mirrored on the rippled bayou:
             an image, an image so untrue.

Withdrawing myself from this sight,
The path I have often tread,
Walk once more I do.
And the water sliding along the seawall
Reminds me of words spoken last night...

Purpose lost

Not giving up to Despair,
yet they wait,
Hoping for a future.

trying to look in

                                                                                                   
forboding darkness,
a chilling haunt.

Out of a collapse

















Once a thriving industry,
Now a chaotic heap,
An unintended monument...

Sunday, December 25, 2011

For some...

In the end,
Light

The Pearl

Into the music

Listening to her play the keys,
My heart takes refuge in the notes.
As her fingers dance about with passion,
The piano reveals her heart.
The melodies and harmonies blend
Effortlessly in and around each other
While driving the worries and sorrows
From me and leaving me in serenity.
Only her songs born deeply within
Can reach into me and calm my mind.

Such is my Pearl.
And for that brief hour,
My heart knows rest...

life: like a railway

On the siding of life,
Waiting.
The promise of a future,
Of a destination unsure,
 The gleaming rails reach
Around the bend.

Sometimes....

purple haze...
lately, things don't seem...

Monday, December 19, 2011

from a long ago mississippi night

seen in a brother's eyes

the morning, bright of fire,
reaches its hand out over the city;
and street lights, like anxious eyes,
look to the  dawn with disdain,
tainted with traces
of lowly clouds in the west.

dawn finds the lawns drowsy, wet with dew;
the crisp winter air bites the breath
of the child, turning his collar to the cold.
looking to the sun, his eyes are of tears
saying, " you lie in jest..."

cry, child, cry.
breathe loud the lonely sigh.
having tread the night,
your restless thoughts
(which of the right?)
fall like rain,
cold,
so stinging...

Friday, December 16, 2011

Times in life

Night Lies Quietly

Night lies quietly at my window
And a wind's song billows the curtains
Of my window overlooking the valley.

Listen now to a wind's song,
So tearful in the willows by the brook
Rustling youthfully
Under the moon of April;
And the tears cried
Spatter in the spring's dust
Of the rutted country road.

Listen now to a wind's song
Full of zest,
Wandering in the woods
So dazzling in color;
And a waterfall,
Knowing the words,
Unceasingly echoes the refrain.

Listen now to a wind's song
And one will never be the same...

on the edge

        Out of the asylum...

On a dream's beach,
I walk in the foaming surf.
The raven night hides the palms and the stars;
All I can hear are the waves' words
But I cannot interpret their worth.

I cannot understand
Why the sea casts out the sage and the shell;
Why has she rejected the kelp
Now dying upon the beach?
And I cannot understand
Why she steals the grains of the beach each day
To leave nothing here when eternity comes.
Why does she grip the vessels upon her waves-
Taking them down into her murky depths?

And the drift wood struggles to climb
The wind-blown, sloping beach.
Oh, it will tire; will it lose itself
To the tumultuous extent?
The sea heightens and the wind strengthens,
Sucking up sands and spewing them in my face--
Blinding me, hiding the calls of the circling birds of white.

But a cloak is laid to cover the dawn.
And once again,
I am returned to the Asylum...

Where one becomes another--
Talullah/Tugaloo


Not being deterred,
So the Talullah....


Monday, December 12, 2011

out of mississippi

         The unheard weeping
                    (come of the evening on Wolf River)

the evening crept upon us
as we splashed about the river.
with haste discarded,
        the evening in accompany with slumber,
slipped upon us in our lapsing frivolity.

the forest fell into a different rhythm
about us as we collected dead wood
for the fire to warm the night.
the untimed falling of the hatchet
resounded the length of the Wolf.
the wood-laden canoes peacefully parted
the easing water, worn from its flood rush;
and the finding of a trout
ushered only exhausted excitement
from those building the fire.

and in our wearied talk
around the bristling fire,
the weeping was left unheard
Once More....

Sunday, December 11, 2011

A.....uhhh...ummmm...Thought

Irratic
            attitudes
     offer
                               nothing.....

Out of Mississippi

Reflections upon a moment:
            the interval at Ocean Springs Harbor

The sky is a silent crystal blue
Hovering over the crafts that sleep.
The masts reach at the sky, and the water
Glitters from the relentless stare of the Sun's eyes
While small fish dart about beneath the piers.

A lone catamaran glides gracefully by-
A soothing wind filling her striped sails.
The rippling wake that she leaves behind
Unfolds like a fan that a countess bears.

The tall pines and cedars are gathered in huddles
Sharing secrets and adventurous tales
While seagulls swoop and dive in mock battle.

The aged docks give access
To the crafts that call their masters.
Shrimpers moan from the rugged week's work,
And power boats are readied for their weekend excursions...
The boats of sail are trimmed,
Awaiting the will of the wind.

The wind strengthens--boats roll at their moorings;
Their rodes restrain them....
Voices call out, they drift like waves
             snuggling up to the hulls, or like a path
             through a freshly dug garden.

There is a mirror...
It unveils the harbor channel extending southwest,
And a sailboat enters quietly,
            the crew lowering the genoa.

An egret watches all from atop a piling near a low marsh
While houses hide among the flowers,
           watching the harbor.
Their eyes enthralled by the quiet beauty.
Yet, they see another sailboat seek her berth.

And after her tired sails have rested,
           she will venture again
           into the mesmerist sea
           to become a vision
           against the azure sky...
At the helm--my father.

from west virginia

             Road to Bartlick Chapel

From the mountain, the brook
splashes over the sandstone configurations,
cragged and demure,
to the hills choked in an August forest:
          a restlessness cries the mountain
shown by the whiteness of the brook
over the sandstone channeled
in the cheek of the mountain
behind the Chapel,
         laying in white and silent of tongue
         under a clouded, quarter moon.

To the sides of the mountains
is a road cut to follow
the clefts and hollows,
encroaching upon the tamelessness
        of this domain
        in the Appalachians,
known only by its coal
and mountain rigs gearing down the grade.

And gripping the rails
is the Clinchfield Railroad
       grumbling over the Russell Fork River

The dusk of coal

From a Mountain

From a mountain
     on a Thursday evening
            cast in clouds,
A mountain's family blighted in poverty
     huddles in the muddy yard--
            yellowed laundry
    strung to trees the lonely decor.

Water from a rill, muffled,
    (but to the roots in drink),
           flows to the family
    of the haggard house
(Given long ago to the mountain's claim)
By a hose hung above the road,
     Heralding to the different whispered screams
           of four-wheel drives
With faces in the mask of coal.

And the mother's mother's mother
                  piano
hollering out mistimed notes
To the Bartlick Chapel walls
             Is sung to by just the ghosts in the pews.

life in death

the fungus discovers its life
in the death of others

onto the future

into the sun,
leaving the past to history,
its memory colored and skewed.

Casting a shadow,
and  what will become of it?
What will be its legacy?

a certain irony

Monday, December 5, 2011

hope peeking around

the darkness attempts to occlude hope.
and we envision  hope as distant,
untenable,
teasing  us on the eastern shore.
but hope spreads itself upon
the mirrored water,
quietly reaching into the night.