~

Vibrations loosen
 the dust on my piano,
  releasing tiny particles
   into a rectangle sunbeam
    dancing about the glass,
     as I play compositions
      upon freeform keys,
       fingered imagination
        frantically moving
         levers in never before
          heard melodies
           with a locked
            sustain pedal
             holding each note
              to gradually
               evanesce
                into silence
                 as the dust
                  once
                        again
                                se­ttles

A piece of my heart runs the earth
True South, wild and free.
Eyes like a tree
Rooted in dirt.

The River still runs.
Into The Illinois,
Down into The Mississippi,
South through St. Louis and New Orleans
Into the Gulf of Mexico,
Flowing endlessly down, carrying
Sticks and stones and mud and leaves and waste from Spoon River
Into the Gulf and beyond.

The Hill still stands. Steadfast through
Storms and rain and thunder and lightning and sunny days and clear, starlit nights.
And the sleep of those on the Hill is unbroken, yet their voices still whisper
Into the wind and the shadows,
Their voices still scream over the thunder,
And the lightning illuminates the graves from which the voices speak.
For just a second.

For a hundred years the voices told their stories and we listened.
Five generations have passed and the voices have not changed.
Where are the children of the voices on the Hill?
And their children, and their children’s children?
Who will tell their stories?
Will anyone listen?
Phil Lindsey 8/3/14

Adrift in dark and foreign tides of time
I sought to live among the winsome stars.
Between the shadows of the elder moon—
In mountains lost from any source of light—
I wandered lost below the purple sky
Unmoved by that well-expected night.

Oh fate that leads to live the dawn of night!
Oh life, that filthy pool to squander time—
But what a joy to see the starlit sky!
The sun consuming dust from foreign stars,
To see the ocean's mirror cast out light—
Project an image of our lovely moon.

Indeed I feel I hide behind the moon,
In shadows cast by dreadful ghosts of night:
And curse my eyes if I walk into light.
Forgotten shores of childhood lost in time,
Embracing seas of solitude in stars—
A well-known fate in death of burning sky.

Will death thus raise me to the highest sky
Or drive me to the loudest raging moon?
I’d rather find diversion in the stars,
Forsake my wisdom of that sacred night
Than face the painful claws of passing time—
I find demise when I stare into light.

I was revealed the mysteries of light,
Yet hide below the comfort of the sky
As I transcended boundaries of time,
Forever hidden in the woeful moon
And blind upon that everlasting night,
Hunting pleasure in the short-lived stars.

Illusionary joy, deceitful stars:
You guided me to death away from light!
And whence was born this novelty called night?
I thought that safety reigned below the sky,
That I could hide from truth behind the moon—
I curse the painful wings of passing time.

When sunless time arrived upon the sky,
And Moon became a frozen lake of light,
Woe to me, whose night devoured the stars.

I put my trembling

hand in hers

when I was four

and twenty years

now twenty more

are come and gone

and yet my trembling

carries on

for different reasons

though I don't

remember when

those reasons changed

and all I have

is foolish hope

that one day they may

change again ....