Dead End Gestures

Towards cloud windows of windward beckoning,

a subtle change in lighting

sees shapes manifest out of shadows

entranced

while spirit and reason

moved together and danced

across the ridges, up the range’s spine,

sharp contours carved in the sky,

mirrors vast sea floors

in an ancient design.

 

In fields of vision,

notes are getting overgrown.

Scenes wet gesturing to the sun

smooths this continuation,

where you’ve only just begun

to see beyond dead end details,

revealed out of the corners of the eye,

those hairpin turns that conceal grave outlines.

Leaves awaiting new wings,

appeal to the wind.

All is just out of reach,

simple gestures

that teach of a transient patience,

until the mist on the peak speaks

through the moss-hewn pages

of a weathered book,

through the placid passage

of a wizened brook

maneuvering over stones,

the ancient fire’s bones,

to sink into waters that hold

the buoyant unknown.

 

Like the ink that slowly drips from a hand,

it slips into oblivion,

where most poetry appears to be living.

Seems the finest thoughts

were the ones we’ve lost to moderation,

as if to curtail that wellspring

from bubbling to the surface

again and again.

Father of fragments broken from the whole.

The moon, as if dislodged, moves into the window.

Full of primitive etchings and a glow

that is more than a simple guide

but a halo of strange origins

whose light seems to lord

over the landscape of the soul.

We gained an entrance within

through loss of control and intoxication.

A moment’s fascination

gives rise to chicken skin,

before follicles fall away into crevices,

subtly witness the metamorphosis

of line into line, choice word into rhyme,

until buried under flimsy layer

upon flimsy layer in time.

 

Canvass Transparency

Focusing on a point in-between

all the moments that came and will be.

A blank canvass

for the transparent vision

that if not for these columns

would be a decline into confusion.

A pondering of illuminated strands

stretched and torn

where hobbies are born out of the illusion

of sewing them back together.

A life picked apart.

A progression that picks up art

as it goes

until the last breath poses the question,

“What is left and what is worth bringing?”

For a collector of scenes,

becoming aware

of how they thread themselves into dreams,

like a canvass transparency

so that light can filter through in words,

a luminescent dial pointed towards this possibility.

With spasms of inspiration,

like an electric current,

climbing the spine.

A direct circuit

that feeds into the divine,

shines like a beacon’s light

across the night to suspend time,

like a bridge that connects no land.

 

The sun returns to fill in the cracks

between the cold and the blanket.

You feel eternity in the warmth alone,

when prone to consider

the thin veil between us.

Most days you lay hidden in variable weather.

So seeking diversion elsewhere,

you try to forget her.

Like a divergent thought

splitting paths

leaving traces

like shadow on the open spaces

or skin on the pillows of cloud,

a canvass, transparent

passing without a sound.

Another curve suddenly,

with no segway

(distant railroad whistles)

Only the lonely longing

that is evident in a melancholy heart

bound to an excess of feeling.

Warming to a kind of spontaneous animation,

the dancing flames,

the wrist that weaves its keening

into addresses and names.

It is stamped with a charred scent,

another goodbye,

post cards from a starter fire

inspires impermanence

with a burnt edge and a piece of paper.

Drifting up with sparks of insight,

dancing flecks moving aimless

into the dark of the night.

Fireflies in oblivion

you could almost grasp

as the last gasp of the hearth

crackles for all it is worth

in an amphitheater of shadows.

Confessions Without Borders

Midnight descends in a common darkness

of heavy emptiness.

The building’s a vacant gaze,

skull sockets for a windowless place

with no retention.

Thoughts simply pass through

this dimension into forgetting.

Soon silence transforms itself

into a multitude of birds

begetting the sun.

They call out in unison,

beak by beak

octave by octave,

voices rise from the grave

to the swaying nave

of a great cathedral.

They begin to break up the night,

to cave in that ceiling of dreaming,

revealing we’re alive for another day.

 

Pull this moment over you,

like a cap that casts shade

on the glare of all other

goals to pursue

perpetual platforms,

to pass through

circles receding

into a sanctuary of shadows.

The cool safety of shade baits

half-opened shutters of whispers,

to your closest friends

you’re a good listener.

The stillness you entertain

for scraps of thought,

 a fresh catch thrown

from languid skiffs in the sun.

A feeling of mist and abandon.

Voices hanging

like an aged and translucent skin.

Truths and prejudices

perhaps are no consolation

for a questionable worth

to wrap ourselves in.

Where does the inside end

and the outside begin?

The capacity to determine

the dimensions of an ancient foundation.

There are no borders only confessions

laying in ruin.

The boundaries are absorbed

into the coals of a dying fire.

Surface shreds of lives left forgotten,

mandala funnel void of countless impressions,

sudden shifts in the symmetrical spin,

the rhythms of experience chiming in,

resplendent, golden

moments like companions fading away

until new ones are born

out of the foam and clay.

Warmed by the building flames

of what became boundless

flashes of color

unearthed on a beach of lambent shades.

They’ll coalesce on edges

where all the driftwood merge

to go up again.