The breeze stretches and cools the season
along the country road
variegated light, leaf-filtered
from trees that lean
in rivalry for my eager eyes.

Their foliaged arms dangle, then drop
an amber snowfall all around
as if to awaken me
to the autumn creep
into my bones that click and tick
with each tottery step.

Earth awakens me to the beauty
in this splendorous season
of the gliding swaying passage
of life in alteration
and spiritual invitation
to bathe in the slow current of creation
along this road
and its cool and bright possibilities.

I dropped the pencil
had to pick it up
bent over my big belly
with a huff and a grunt.

Late for church
forgot to shave
with three days of stubble
I stood in front to sing
a sting and a red face
when I felt my cheek.

Didn’t feed the cat.
Forgot to get the eggs.
Left the lights on all night.
Forgot her birthday.
Oh me!

Each small thing
mounts a minor chord
sheds a shadow
of fear
what’s next?
       .       .       .

For all the little things
and the big ones
every day’s a hunt
running from the hound
in ceaseless pursuit.
I drop scraps from my stride,
dive into the river
and go with the flow
to yet another innocence.

I’ve been thinking about death
almost obsessing on it.
Then I decided
obsessing is stupid.
A lesson I’ve tried to avoid
as the decades piled up
on my skin and bones.

Coping with my stupid compulsions
a mountain I climb daily
surely I should have muscles
to show for it

and I do

but you can’t see them
can’t measure their mass
or flex them for cameras
they are noticeable
to those who know me.
Friends and kin are the ones
who detect the trace of my thorns

and

the sum
of what I’ve overcome.

But what of this muscular brawl
with death?
My best conclusion-
let go
and daily do
what God has led me to.
Love the ones I’m with

and

my enemies.

Death is not punishment
but a chance
to be make sparks
and dance with the divine
in the mansions
here and after.

Down from the gray mountains
you caress the emerald foothills
bejeweled with low lupine and lilies.
Storming across the plains
and fields of lively grain
you rain your glory on red winter wheat.
Barley and corn
spring up from ancient soil
eager to be young again.

By the time you ruffle the hair on my arms
you have inhaled gold
vital essence
spread it lavishly on the land
and so you arrive inside me
and sow your quiet liberty
and wisdom in my soul,
you my lovely magnificent muse.

Welcome back.

If I were blind
I’d still be able to enter the deep cavern of my mind
filled with eight decades of your creation,
and sensations as deep as earth and high as its sky.

Here am I Lord ready to jump as high and as deep as you will.
The layers of my life as uneven as the thrill
of color in strata of the Grand Canyon
as sure as you, my dear faithful companion.

Here in the green meadow of your peace
I find a place to release
all the conflict and pride I’ve amassed
in this long life passed

in the blink of your eye.

In the soft tinkling of the piano
I hear the gentle peace
of the meadow
and feel the breeze
tickling the hair on my arms.
In the coffee the rich warmth
and wisdom of my muse
trickles down my throat.
The noise of the day
switches off
reshaped into the fullness
and unbridled breadth
and splendor
of the universe.

When I pause here
in this private spacious room
and allow the silence to swirl around me
I bathe in love and anticipation
of finding a free spirit
in the small details of my day.

Here I don’t hear the sounding horns
the low moans of trucks
the frenetic exclamations of TV mavens.
All I hear is a quiet voice
calling me to stay here
my attention undivided
if only for a few moments.

In this quiescence I discover
the depth and the richness
of just being.

I can decide if I will let go
and enjoy the moment
with the crepe myrtle across the way
and swing in the breeze with the sunflowers
or
if I will pull the shade of fear over my eyes
and attach to my feet the weight of worry.

On the news I see video
of fallen trees and devastated homes
wrought by a tornado -
too late for damage control.

But I have in me
fallen trees
crumpled garbage cans
wrecked plans
vertical vehicles
dead pets
stacks of regrets
and borrowed sorrows.

So here I am displaying my damages
spilling my darkness in this light.

Thank you
for abiding for a while
in this modest attempt at damage control.

Two birds
waiting for seeds
squirrels hog the feeder
boy girl cardinals a patient
red pair

Looking out the window I see
in the cup of a single holly leaf
a drop from last night’s rain
gazing glinting into my eyes
sun beams in that little drip
as if to herald the cosmic curator
of the visible.

I dive nose first into your inner essence
there in your yellow *******
your mighty flowering all the way from your roots
in the succulent whiteness of your blossoming being
you reveal to the world what it means
to disclose, expose and surrender
your deep secrets
to all who stop to take notice,
to him who planted and nurtured you
to your magnificent wholeness
to the creator of the universe
in which you flourish.

Your scent is a hint
of the mystery which is you
my sweet magnolia blossom.

The old man stooped down
in his veiny swollen-knuckled hand
a box smaller than a tennis ball
wrapped in silvery paper
the child took it
raised it to his ear and shook it
no sound at all
without a thought he cast it aside
and turned away in a desultory stride.

Even at this young age
the silent shiny gift bored him
as did the kindness toward him
he seemed unaware
of the elder there
or his value
not worth even a smile
or a flicker of respect.

I wondered
if this was a child
of abundance
or neglect
too much presents
or not enough presence.

And what was in that shiny box?

flame jumps and waltzes
reaching for the heavens
pointing there
not entire here
it can’t contain itself
its inner being too wild
for this air.

I am its cousin
kindred energy
in our genes
our lives short but full
the future not our thing
we burn now
knowing we live
in this moment.

But does a lover ignore his beloved?
Do I think you get used to it?
Like a flute playing in the distance.
Do I think you blind or deaf
to my silence
to the bustling dreary me?
Do I think you are immune
to my flight?
Do I hope you are dough waiting to be kneaded
assume you are accustomed to being unneeded
or do I wear
a dark cloak glad you don’t see me there?

How often do I blithely
utter, I love you
while wrapped secure
in the loaf of self?

Countless songs sing your might
and your brawny romance with us.
The kiss, the sigh I return in moonlight
seems so weak.
But that is my puny judgement,
for when I am in the clutches of love
when I allow its vast waves to overtake me
I can get up from my sleepy lazy state
and stretch my muscle and bone,
walk toward your pain or joy with a stride and demeanor
no masculine actor could ever emulate.

Yet you are the mortar full of feeling
the octane of which clamors a symphony of sound
I cannot even hear
but feel it in my chest and biceps and thighs.
Your sadness clouds the stars
your joy makes them beam
your anger burns bright and hot in them.

So how can I hurt you?
Above all, by my indifference
when I break free and flee your embrace
when I strike you in the face
and punch you in the gut
with my pride, lust
and magnitudes of madness
my shame brings tears to my eyes.
It is not a shame that disables me
but awakens me to my limits.

How you must fear my freedom
because of what I have done,
what I do with it in my life?
How lonely you must feel when I abandon you
in favor of pleasure or hubris!

If you are invincible and lord of the cosmos
how would you make yourself so powerless
and vulnerable to emotions?
Because you sparked the creation
of my species and my planet
and even became human
to show us the profusion of love,
sensations and sentiments possible.

Including hurt.

One of its legs was broken
right atop the spring’s coil
the edges of the old wood
rounded and stained from rain
and oils of veined hands
hands of lovers who chose to toil
for a month of years
for their sweaty families
in from fields and factories.

This fallen veteran of wars
its leg broken in battles with the wind
and the weight of wet sheets
battles for dignity and respect
walking tall in clean clothes
to Sunday church.

Church where the broken are joined
bound to brothers and sisters
in union with their God
hanging together on the silver spring of faith
and their resplendent love.

Your voice crackles like red logs in a camp
singes the tiny hairs in my ears
burns in my numbered parts
eddies over the big stones
rolls pebbles left and right as if looking for a place
to lodge and rest, away from the pounding environment.

Your long and insistently unruly hair
tickles the tiny places inside
that never thought of being tickled
never figured to be touched by your hidden wildness
the disguised untamedness
stirs my groggy languid waters
your wild, full flushed heart pounds
rhythm into my flat languid and resistant plains.

I am a sandy arid desert dotted with cacti and pigweed
thirsting for the fluid you excite with ease
and draw up from my depths.

Songs erupting from the well of your faith
come forth from your sober mouth
and waft over our sallow selves
over our normality and our implacable comfort.

Your vocal chords echo Leonard Cohen
a pursuer who never found the object of his quest
but you do not deify the journey
like so many traveling troubadours.
You rest assured of your place up yonder
the place safe and secure in green planet that is you.

“As a Royal you were always taught to maintain a buffer zone between you and the rest of Creation” – Prince Harry

I was a working class boy
from an oft-reeking neighborhood
there south of Greens Bayou
where a north wind
made us breathe rotten-egg air.

I was no royal.
But when I read the Prince’s quote today
I wondered if my mom’s childhood-induced fears
imposed a buffer zone on me
to protect me from the tough guys
whose dads ground pipes and did wiring
in local industrial plants.

Years of drinking beer sitting in the rear
I watched bar fights and felt Mom’s fear
as surely as if she’d been sitting near.
I didn’t stay in the Scouts long enough
to learn the stuff of being a man
didn’t hunt with my brother
and learn from him how to take a stand.

Now an adult, I’m sorry I wasn’t wild,
too bad I became too shy and too mild
shunned risk and danger, stayed too clear.

Was it some thin metal strand from me to my mama’s fear
that robbed me of things that make a man?
I know I learned empathy and gentleness from her
and hold not a shred of anger
for her or Dad who worked so many hours
away from that field of dreams.
I know their love saved me from violent extremes
and made me cherish God, music, and art,
tragic, as well as sensual, and exquisite scenes.
So here I sit writing
reflecting with preludes, green plants and memories.

Harry, Prince the Duke of Sussex, Spare, Random House, 2023, p. 54

When I witness your beauty
mingle my soul in your galaxies
bathe in your sweet fragrance
see the piercing tumescence
of your desire
your passion to scatter your seeds
in waves of wind
upon the earth
into the most protected regions
of our minds
I know you are a poet
who cannot resist reaching
beyond the confines of your self.

Traveling the dusty winding road
I reached the rain forest
heard the Macaw sing
saw its flash of glory in air
and I mused what I’d missed
in the dusty doctrines and dogmas
leather volumes
safe and secure at home
a home I feared might morph
into a wooly gulag
or a colonial province
where freedom groaned
and dragged like an anchor
in shallow water.

The cloudy mucky morning
portends this winter’s end
whatever dawning light
needs importing from within
to burn away
the showers aborning.
That’s why I’m here with you
so you can hear and I can read
the plot arising.

I’m awaiting
a vessel fit for floating
a song worth singing
a fire to light the candle
to connect the spirit in me
to the flame in you.

I’ve said only half-jokingly
I’m a slow learner
of life lessons.
I was wondering about snails
if they learn as slowly as they move
but does our species
ever learn
really absorb
even the basic how-tos
of saving ourselves and our planet?

I might never sate my appetite
for ice cream, tenderloin, or fried fish
but sometimes
it’s hard to empty myself
and make room
for the other fella’s little world
or for God.

My slightly shaky fingers
rest steady on the keys
poised to open my heart
to make room for  
a deep dive into the red fibrous
muscle of the cosmos.

I hear the deep soft clanging windchimes
and catch their movement in the wind
a sad flute sings an elegy
the green plants gently strain for rays
the sound of the heater
its warmth on my left leg and thigh
the wide body of the hawk
gracefully swoops down beyond the windows.

These seconds abiding
in the intense present
make long hours and ennui days
worth any minor miseries.

The flute played a lullaby in the distance
calling the man and his horse into desert’s blanch
where even tumbleweed had vanished.
He saw the streaked banks of the arroyo
that told a tale of currents
whose power clashed and hurled taut soil west
where the sun was going gold.

His face etched by storms
in many forms
he tried to ignore joint moans
by whistling Cohen’s Halleluia
that wiggled forth a salty mist
in his eyes.

Halleluia for all the years.
He hummed the line
he heard Leonard say:
don’t dwell on what’s passed away
or what is yet to be.

The flute again cast its spell
not a knell but a psalm
of praise to make
and create what he could
be it on paper or carved in wood.

I took the train into the tunnel
the car lit with candle glow
there standing just so
my brother with a wan look and a slight grin
I leaned to kiss his forehead, felt the taut skin
Mom across from him,
I placed my cheek against hers
two tears from the deep cavern of her sadness
fell on my constant brow  
Dad faced me with dazzling cheer
eyes full of joy that his son was here.

Awakening from the abyss of night
I arose with a smile inside
grateful for an intimate ride
with that poignant cast
an interlude to abide
and flutter in the sails of family
arrived from a pulsar of the past.

That day visiting with friends
I hugged every one tight
cherished the lush
precious
present
of the living.

I thought religion was it.
A gnarly piece of wood
always trying to fit,
I ran and ran as far as I could
took the road east then west
to find the one that was best
jumped in with both feet
since daddy always said
do what you do
work and sweat til complete.
My problem was I couldn’t stick
to this branch
whittle til nice and slick
that other branch looked too good
so I took it -
my piece of wood!
But it wasn’t
so I quit
to search again.
I had to seek
and find something new
risky steeper deeper
and true.

Slow and easy the old cells flake off
unnoticed as my body replaces itself
over time
not bound by one tiny galaxy
or even millennia
your pace is in my every step
shake of my hand
or moment
when one eyelash meets then leaves the other.
You are in the silent pop of synapses
emergent in an idea
in my chest swelling and tingling
with a notion learned between the lines of a novel
in the words of a wise old nun
in the feel of my body in my lover
the scent of her hair
the shake of  my chest
laughing at her hilarious joke
but especially when I shut my mouth
bear with the silence for a while
and listen to the peaceful
voice that speaks only in quiet
only when I can empty the chatter
and effervescence in my mind.

Translucent and
undeserved mercy
streams into me
humbling me like giant sequoias
who draw my eyes to the heavens!

Breathing full
along the brown tree line
next to the silent teal pond
birds still singing winter.
I feel my chest tingle
like when I was twenty five
discovering scotch
a woman’s breath on my neck
still believing somehow God was in that host
the priest raised.
All was ahead of me
and, as now
unknown.

It’s simple, simpler
when in my raucous brain
I well fight the warring birds
and focus on a single idea.

I watched a movie last night
toward the end saw a couple on a boat
rowing toward the western golden light
then the clear Aegean
floated me into a cove in my brain
where mystery and emerald waters
became plain.

My memory organizes my life
by place.

The brownish sandy beach
where I whittled driftwood with my first Case knife.
The oleanders near the cyclone fence,
climbing the wiry fence tops chasing my friend Vince
who cursed those wires that caught his *******.
The river running through Tamaqua
on a family trip east as a kid
but I can’t see the faces or hear the names
of my New Jersey kin
I do see the wood box where me and my cousins hid.
Gone are the faint glimmers of folks
beyond the red-blooming poisonous bush
the names of aunts back east I wrote juvenile letters to
but I recall their ice cream parlor wall painted bright blue.

Closing my eyes
I see the yellow floor
and the bent aluminum legs of the kitchen table
I wiggled under as fast as I was able
to avoid Daddy’s long brown leather belt
and when he missed I heard his anger melt
when he couldn’t suppress a giggle.

Ah! the joy of my lively geographic memory.

I was banging on the big wooden front door
with both fists
there were little square windows
each framed with four mitered corners.
I could see into the church
people singing and raising their hands
but I couldn't get in.

I have many dreams at night
almost all of them forgotten
but in this near-waking state
I knew this one meant something
I needed to pay attention.

Pay attention
what a phrase!

Moving my hands and arms
across the canvas
with the brush in two shades of red
lavishing the northeast corner toward southeast
next to blacks and blues.
Yellows now circling like covered wagons
into the blossom of a daisy.
These strokes took care
in praise of pigments
throwing a few coins for toll
just costly enough to
keep me moving west
the sun not yet setting.

There are always doors
or blinds I cannot open
nearly as easily as I would like
too heavy or out of reach.
Patience also costly.
Like attention.

Slender and humble in its youth
the oak grew in moist earth near the bayou.
Roots pierced the dark land
ate the rich gumbo
silently morphed facets of soil
into a heart
with unexposed power and poise.

Across the bayou
on a screened porch
a young girl watched the new rain
make puffs of dust in the dirt
she daydreamed in the drifts of clouds
and wondered where they were born.

A young man and his friend
off the beaten path of their travels
found the town pool.
Swimming, he saw the beautiful girl
perched above the deep end
and across longitudes and latitudes
of loving, laughing, and weeping
they birthed and raised a family.

The bark’s ridges and gaps reveal
centuries of storms and floods
the oak’s long limbs laden
with life, wisdom, and altered environments.

These two entwined lives enriched
by learning and prodigious practice
their wine a vintage
of passionate enchantment
imbibed by thirsty learners
across decades beyond ordinary borders.

But she like the oak
with open arms
her strength born in good soil.
Hers is a rare power of gentle love
hers a courage born
of some cosmic connection
at the heart of her beautiful humanity.

Dedicated to my cousin Melanie on her eightieth birthday. Both of us born in the Durand line in southern Louisiana not too far from the Evangeline Oak near Bayou Teche. Our lives were seemingly divergent but somehow parallel and ultimately connected, I think, by a power greater than ourselves. If you are interested in more, please see: https://www.currierpoems.net/teche-series

I went to my friend
almost afraid to expose the need
I found as I read the book,
not knowing if he would be deaf to it.
As I spoke of my father
who was not there
to show his boy how to be a man
I recounted my losses
and the load of grief I felt.

My sadness clung to me
a heavy suit of chainmail on a dark knight.
I could feel my face
drooping in lamentation
unable to be the smiling grinning buddy
I normally brought to the room.

Seemingly unable to enter into my pain,
my friend, a man of great intellect, character and conviction,
responded only with a litany of his own.
I tried to listen but my burden
made it a mighty climb.

Now I know my pal is only human
and I am wrestling
with my self
sweating MY
deafness.

Driving home from the airport
from High Ridge Road we peered at downtown.
I told our visitor
this is the view tourists like
looking at the city from afar
or driving past its monuments.
But if you really want to see the city
you have to smell the streets the morning after
or visit Aunt Stella in her trailer.

That night we did just that
laughing with the folks
sitting on her old stuffed couch
and on rickety folding chairs
she’d fetched from the bedroom closet.

We listened to Fred
leaning over his old guitar
playing it as if it were a woman.
His voice was gravel
but when he sang falsetto
I could see him in his mother’s arms.

Stella quietly left for the kitchen
and brought back beers
and saltines and sharp cheddar cheese,
Fred still crooning softly.
We were completely mesmerized by him
and his humble country charm.

As I sat there with our visitor
I was again a boy at home with Mama
and Daddy who’d just got in from the plant
in his khaki pants and shirt  
smudges of oil on his sleeves
smelling of the day’s sweat.

It is a profusion of earth
direct to my brain
in one breath
its brown luxury
sensual and sultry
a lover's naked warmth
under heavy quilts o a cold winter's morn.

It ignores inner constraints
penetrates points of pleasure
hidden deep and unnoticed
until I open this new can of coffee.

The slugger swept the bases
his swift run for home past third  
blew away the dusty traces
his teammates had stirred.

She precisely whisked flour
with oil, eggs, and spice
but played til such a late hour
she had to mix it twice.

The coach signaled a sacrifice fly
but he wanted to slam it
not a martyr kind of guy
so he hit a homer ******!

You might want to make dough
but you’d have to prove the matter
to get your fund and asset to grow
don’t forget you’re mixing a human batter.

“To write is to go looking for what I don’t even know myself before I write it.”
- Annie Ernaux, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature

I went into the dark canyon
not knowing where it would lead -
another adventure
taken up to pursue a dream,
my hand holding the reins
not knowing what lie ahead
nor what I was looking for.

The notion that led me here
words in my head
the meaning of which were a cypher so cryptic
I knew not what quest I would wrest from them.

But I had been told that this riding
was an exploration of the unknown.
That I was just a hapless pioneer
in a borderless land,
a wilderness
requiring a spindly surrender.

It’s early morning
as he starts down the rocky bank of the lake
he slips
his rod and reel in one hand
his other on a boulder to break his fall.
Already fishing, I am about to laugh
but I see the consternation and fear
on his face.

Late that night we sit up
reading a favorite writer
who never failed to transport and beguile us.
We laughed
remembering a previous predicament
we had barely escaped together.

Comfortable moments of quiet
just thinking about what we had read
trying to make it fit in to each of our so-called separate lives
back in the so-called real world.

But I wonder if those times were more real
as we re membered the body of our friendship.

The music plays its dirgelike tune
repeating it repeating repeating
until it is painful to keep listening,
lonely in its dreary tedium.

I am not sure whether to call this
an ache
or a yearning.

Being enclosed here in this seemingly endless loop
makes me want to jump out of it
onto the ship wreckage floating by me
to find a place with more life and lift
a field of clover and daisies
bees buzzing about the tasks of their short lives.

I looked out over
the peninsula of ice
reaching out into the rippling lake,
unsettled as I.
Snow covered peaks on the horizon
like clouds,
dreams and ideals melted
in decades poured out
in earnest labor.

The tall gaunt preacher
stood stoop-shouldered
his black hat barely gripped
in his hand held against his left leg
his face sad, eyes cast down
as if to discern what had gone wrong.

The rusted out bike
tires flattened, lay on bricks discarded
from an old church
with a cast iron cross
aching and alienated.

A once sparkling life
may seem barely more than refuge
but a soul stirs
still beaming,
a lighthouse
on the sea
crashing against the rocky shoal.

With a bleak wan smile
she confided
when she went to the restroom
she noticed she had not flushed the toilet the previous time
and I could hear a hint of fear and regret in her voice.

For two weeks the pain on the left side of her back
was still there
and an awkward limp
when she got out of bed.
She spoke with a dripping sadness in her words.

In a slightly bewildered tone
she traced her arrival at home
from her visit with her aging nieces.
She reflected on their continual drone about their medical conditions
as she listened mute
without her usual
lively witty
response.

It was as if she could almost feel
the slow creeping shadow
of senescence
and mortality
behind her.

I was again struck
and gratified
by the surprising
frankness of my eighty-six-year-old cousin
as we chatted and each recalled
our Thanksgiving
encounters
with kin.

An insect clinging to driftwood in choppy water
that’s how I felt
small alone bewildered lost
looking for a swift escape.
Not a good place to be.
Scanning the horizon for a buoy
a lighthouse a beach
any mooring.

In the next room she was reading
and with a timidity belied by the long golden strand
of our marriage,
quiet, almost shy I went to her
and said in a worn voice, I need to talk.

Me in my otherwise articulate self
was foundering throwing about for words
finally admitting I was dumbfounded
sodden by fatigue
from the self-imposed tethers
of friendship and loyalty.

Boundaries, she said, boundaries.
You have a young mind in an old body.
Let go and read some poems
and write one.

She knew what I needed.

White trapezoid streetlights spill
amber blotches on the avenue of walls behind them
on the wonky bench
she leans on him
their coats and their bodies
warm them this cool evening.
The rectangle of light he holds grips them
their intense focus on a video, oblivious of all else.

Does he even feel her hair on his cheek
or her hand on his inner thigh
or care that her knee touches his.

At least they are present together
their bodies touch.
Their warm breaths commingle
but do they even notice?

Is this a non-cyber moment
an intentional prelude to intimacy
or merely two atoms about to make a molecule?

I cannot know the worlds two people are entering
or divine the wispy cloud of their intentions  
but I can ****** my imaginings into their night
and wish for them the warm might of love.

I could hear the sky’s unsteady dripping,
comforting as I slept in the cool fall morning
the Navaho-patterned quilt
warmed my body
resting quiet in the blind pull of gravity.
How sweet life is sometimes
age dripping gripping me.
But for now I am without a care.

Can I find a spark in this darkness
see through this grim mass
that surrounds my small galaxy
to see a dawn
within that gloomy volume,
experience colors unseeable,
hear a beating heart,
feel its pulsating energy?

I cannot imagine grace
its slow quiet crawl
into my soul

I watched the squirrels chase each other
along the long limbs of the cedar elm
as its leaves fell sporadically
silently whispering
the approach of autumn.

I took a deep breath of cool air
thinking thanks
for mother earth
her gentle breeze stirred the trees
leaves slow dancing with the sun.

I sit comfortably pleased by the pleasance
of this bright day
and the final flowering of sage.