Textures, Gestures

Textures, gestures

into the time lapse

haze of morning,

the spontaneous eruptions

of clouds forming within

what appears static and glass

reflecting the easiest passage

around obstruction.

A break in the rocks ,instruction,

swift action

to balance the rigidity

of thoughts

disguised as wisdom.

Sinking somewhere

unconscious

beneath the surface,

the river stones

smooth as tear drops,

far flung and sinking

deep within an archipelago of

birds singing.

Flecks of light like candles,

shadows and their cave mouths commingling,

each motion creates words

reinforced by moonlight

even after the flames of meaning die.

Textures, gestures,

the eyes in a painting.

Faces in the falls,

rock walls,

the profiles of angels in miniature,

ascending

from cracks and fissures

like the first idle thoughts

that spread

from Le’ahi to Koko head,

lighting

the first spark defiant rim

that holds all the dark within

a cloud fabric’s

somber poem.

Underscoring the bedding,

thresholds in the wedding,

dawn and dark,

a consummation in time.

It comes to penetrate the mind’s

El Greco sky.

Bridging storm clouds

with white shrouds of calm

in the perfectly

swirling turbulence that

contrast unites

in the overtures of this day

in what endures of this night

along the edges of impermanence.

you become aware of it

only as it changes again.

The Returning

The moon, held suspended on a cloud

like a jewel in an outstretched palm

that clenched its fist

over a creative instrument

that prisms the light to beam through the sky.

From this vantage,

see the night thaw into a fleeting image

of my own willingness

to let the past be prologue

and memory become notes in a ship’s log

bound for East Point

painted on the horizon

like a raised birthmark over a darkened skin,

it’s set in its own isolation.

Through the El Greco sky of the mind,

unsteady in the swirl of shade and light,

poles teeter on the edge of each other ,

delicately dancing in the glow.

Where it beckons you’ll follow,

tracing lines to their inevitable ends,

leaving a progeny of words

strung against words

like a procession of lanterns

engulfed by waves

extinguished candles of breath

that craved oxygen,

building up only to give in to collapse.

All the thoughts and differing shades of meaning

shifting the gleam to tide pools cascading

from an overarching theme,

where everything is passing through.

For a moment the moon holds true,

weightless and suspended in a bubble of foam.

A perfect circle, timeless, eternal,

always returning home.

Empty is Everything

There’s a change in the air

brief flashes

shaded in El Greco skies

hammering messages

where mountains rise

but remain indecipherable

in the distance.

Behold the lucent wind gusts

shimmering in the light

transient angels in flight

shivering the landscape

from leaves to window panes

with a whistling refrain

as they pass into the distance.

Unprepared to sever completely

the warmth that holds you inside,

seeping into the skin

enveloping, sleeping in

to the collapse

of autumnal ash

in smoldering wood fires.

Its scented aura

expelled from the parlour

to halo chimneys

in the distance.

Through small drifts

the runaway is renewed,

clouds never stationary

but guided through our periphery,

leaving no trace

save a silent footprint

that borders the space

where the sky meets the sea

in the distance.

A bead of sweat

is a poem still wet,

 the stain of its ink

won’t cover the landscape we think,

evading rain

it’s driving and draining

your every thought,

laying the stone of this road

alternating dreams

with all you were taught

passed by way of blacktop

receding into the distance.

Memory is brightly guiding

in the darkest of places

bonfires on beaches,

so gather what you wish

until loosened from a gloved fist

that supple fish

swimming to far shores

years in the distance.

It is something to grasp at

but come up empty.

Well empty is everything…

to us anyway.