Tag: Light

Burned

I stood on the edge of a great mountain
I bathed in streams of snowmelt, cold and clear
My lungs like a bellows, pumping my heart
I lived in a world of little oxygen
I contemplated deep philosophies
There were no mysteries to challenge me
I spoke to God, and god spoke back to me
The divine word, resounding in the light
I looked down on the people with despair
I despised them, the unworthy masses

I cut my leg on a sharp stone, and fell
A pathogen set in, and I grew ill
My wound became discolored, infected
It crawled up my veins in jagged red streaks
I needed antibiotics. doctors
Despite my constitution, I would die
I was afraid for my life, mortified
By the ease with which I was struck down
I lost the mastery of my ego
My self-satisfaction turned to loathing

I was afraid, now, of death and darkness
Fever and pneumonia nearly took me
My powerful lungs, turned to feeble sacks
My muscles became flaccid, I was lost
I lived in a wheelchair, I could not work
I had no skills, I became dependent
I stewed in contempt, bewailing my fate
My lost holiness, my former station
I waited for the god I once walked with
To lift me from this world, to transform me

I became obsequious and grateful
For the few coins that were dropped in my cup
For the small sum of funds given to me
Deposited each month in my mailbox
I discovered the vice of alcohol
I measured a new form of endurance
How many days and nights could I stay drunk
I lost the bet, and died in an alley
I fell from my wheelchair with the garbage
Face down in my filth and my excrement

My spirit rose, lifting from the valley
I saw my mountain tall and forbidding
I cringed as I ascended, fearing God
Soiled as I was, and miserable
Broken as I was, unwashed, unshriven
I rose past the cold peak of my mountain
Rising higher than I had ever dreamed
The bright sun touched me with its tongues of fire
I was burned…burned alive, I was burned clean
By the brilliance of the spirit, love

Saint Valentine’s Day

Jennifer is she
Bright as a morning in May
Sensual and sweet

A light in the dark
My warming breeze in winter
February’s love

Freckles, and green eyes
Her flashing smile lights my heart
As the sun in spring

Clear as the bright stream
Swift as the rising moon, cool
In the evening

She listens to me
Sheltering my hopes, and dreams
Believing in me

She is strong, and fierce
I lean on her when I’m tired
And she carries me

Six years of loving
Kind and caring Valentine
Jennifer is she

Observation – January 5th, 2020, Sunday

The sky is bright, light
Blueish-gray, matted by clouds
Thin as wisps of frost

There are a few leaves
Dried things that cling to the trees
Flutter in the breeze

Outside my window
Dark limbs stretched across the pane
The old glass cascades

It bends the soft light
Waving in its fluid state
Windows on the world

Observation – December 4th, 2019, Wednesday

Observation
The sun is shining

The snow is already melting in the light

It is warm this December morning

Everything is blurry outside my window

My eyes are still adjusting to the surgery I had

I can hear the spray from the tires of the cars passing by

Dirty-gray slush and salt covering the street

There is ice on the road and it is slippery

There is not a cloud in the sky

Only jets leaving contrails

And black-birds in flight

Stage Fright

A brilliance of light, hot piercing needles, bright—he stands beneath them
Light and heat, the weight of it burns him, sets his Id on fire

Illusions burst, worms of confusion slither and hollow his belly
Amplified voice barely audible, echoes resounding

A pounding inside his head, bells peeling alarm, tinging with dismay
The shaking begins, the axe, a tangle of strings and chords

Plucked into order, the audience in agape, settle in their seats
Wait for the music, Dionysius, fraught expectations

He dreams of the tortoise, the desire of seclusion, seeking an escape
To be, and not to be, the enigma trapped between poles

Torn apart by fear, the strains of desire, discord as the pressure mounts
Flee for the dark of an anonymous pool, cool serenity

Chiaroscuro

The world makes no sense, its shadows melting into greater darkness

Welcome the sun to the stage, pale in the morning when it rises

Crashing waves of light, expose what is hidden, pierced on bright hooks

The sun is just another player drawn-up from the dark, to dance the final act

The locus of light, magnified on the spot, like a brilliant deception

How can I express the certainty in my heart, as it catches fire

Every single nerve burning along its branches, the body electric

The heat of the spirit, freed through the long crawl over the horizon

Lifted to another plane, beyond banality and all dichotomy

A lucid Caravaggio at the canvass, in the dawn

Observation – August 4th, 2019, Sunday

Observation
There is soft light coming through the windows

Cool air after an evening of rain

Sparrows chatter in elms

Kitty looks out the window and day dreams

A motorcycle rumbles down Bryant

The news is filled with tragedies

It is of angry white-men murdering dozens of people

Terrorism in Texas and Ohio

It the two hundred and sixteenth day of the year

Two hundred and fifty mass-shooting

With no end in sight

Twenty-nine dead and dozens hurt

Each shooting took a matter of seconds

The world turns, the light in Minnesota is soft the air is cool

Sparrows chatter in the elms

Kitty listens and watches the morning traffic on the avenue

Prayer

Listen to my prayer, hear it echoing in the dark chamber of my heart

Take me from this island, free my shadow beneath a shower of light

Listen to the music, the harmony of the spheres, the rolling wave beneath the tranquil sea

Remember me, the forgotten, the poetry of Anonymous

The greatest philosopher who never was, the poet of graffiti artists

Pray for the travelers, trudging through this life, marching forward with their doubts

Listen to the forsaken, the wailing of the self-defeated, stretched and thin

Enlightenment reaches everyone, in the end; like the sun-going super nova, small comfort

Pray for the release of the captive, the deliverance of the addict, I pray for you

Say a prayer for me, for mercy on the sinner, broken from the first breath I drew

Pray, as I pray for you