2013: A Morality Play

2013:

A Morality Play

If practice really does 

A perfect mastery make,

My wagon full of props

And I, mere mortal, win

Praises from the town.

Pride here on the straw

Sweeps his hat to take a bow.

Envy seethes deep inside the chest.

Even this is practice for the end:

Wipe the grease from my chin,

Mount the boards, proclaim aloud, 

Loud enough to wake

Sloth sleeping at the reins. 

Shout, "Final! Doom!"

Drive this one, clink and rattle

To the tomb.

Undone.

Picture from Psychadelic Adventures

Undone

Do not clip my wings,

for if I try, and flutter

like a light-singed moth,

I die.

Do not steal my spark,

for if I try, and stumble

in a darkened cave, 

I die.

Do not take my song,

for if I try, and have no voice

to raise to Heaven,

I die and I,

I am a tapping on the sill,

a shadow on the wall,

an echo in the mind,

a curiosity, a loss,

a blank-paged book,

unstoried and unsung,

hero-less, unlit, 

fluttered, fallen, blind.

Undone. Undone. 

I die. I am undone.

Write Their Days Enchanted

 

My daughter says

the children always

bear my scent

when they return,

a sort of story

on their skin.

And so I walk the aisles

spraying paper strips

too small to hold a verse

but heady.

Beautiful

Happy

Sensuous

Love

Blue

and Red 

Flower, Fleur,  Poppy.

Ah! 

Enchanted. 

We'll spray their days

Enchanted,

Let's write their lives

Enchanted,

as childhood

ought to be.

Gather Us In

Gather Us In

Gathering and hunting.

The long trek, the bow, the musket drawn.

Earth's gifts bagged 

or roped and dragged 

or splayed across the backs

of other beasts.

Man breaking bread with man,

lifting it in thanks: through your goodness.

Cruising the aisles, I gather in my cans: 

beans, pumpkin, French-fried onions,

whatever they may be.

Hunt for the right spiral-sliced ham, 

turkey so heavy, I can hardly lift. 

Yams, onions, apples, real butter,

pre-rolled crust for pie,

cider, wine, frozen balls of dough, 

ready for the yeasty heat of praise.

Pardon, Me.

Pardon me my confusion,

You see, I'm feeling lost.

First it was the time coiled up in a net.

Then it was my mind hanging on a string, and yet,

Totally tangled, jangled,

Nothing worth the cost:

          Pardon me, I'm lost.

Never Once Am Turning

Never Once Am Turning

the wagon, 

I am packing

with the few things 

worth the keeping

mostly, leave behind me

more than I am taking

turn my back 

to burned out stubble

in the dewfall haze 

of morning

on the rutted roads 

I'm riding

feel the cooling grace 

of moving

Wormwood

Wormwood 

So, finally, this is how it begins.

One day you're painting the walls,

And the whole thing caves. It starts with a crack,

Then a softness of collapse at just a touch.

Peel away the paint and you will see: the house is eaten,

Its shell filled with layers and layers of cells,

Incubator and birthplace to things that buzz and sting.

Tear out the hive and patch the wall. No matter.

Apply the paint, but still. You know what things may wait

Behind the sheen, how weakness feels and fear,  

And finally, you know how it feels to be betrayed.

Waiting Room

Waiting Room

The woman in the bunny pants
is  most patient of the patients;

waiting seems her nature.

Maybe these appointments 
have become her only outing.

She's going out among 'em, 
as my old dad used to say.

Among whom, I always wondered;
now I know: the dead, the dying,
the sinner sick of sinning, 
the patient weight of living 
all too much like drowning.

Young and Easy

Yesterday was the birthday of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. It was the power of Thomas's poetry that snared me at seventeen. I've been lost in poems ever since. Now much older than he lived to be, I fool around at writing, but really, I'm just a great audience for real poets. 

Kerry at IGRT reminded me of Dylan Thomas's birthday, so I blame her for this:

YOUNG AND EASY

on reading Dylan Thomas in October

And so,

The gifts that sift and fall

On fallow ground

Grow old and spotted

As October's rose

Or the hand that holds them now.

Unyoked, you plow plant reap

Fine wheat.

Too soon, too young

You scatter, seed, outrun

The dying sun.

Caves of Ice

 Caves of Ice

If I could make a cave of words,

Untangle skeins of thought

And shape a cool blue icy haven,

I would surround myself as in Merlin's day.

If I could fashion thought into a lake,

I would eschew the fires of life

For numbing ice, for solace in suspension.

If I could penetrate the deep with this,

And words alone protect me from my sin,

Then I would say let frost begin its holy work.

Turn burning springs of strife to caves of ice.

Hannah at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads brought us this photo and a challenge to write about caves. Go to IGRT to dive inside other poetic caves.