In the house by the lake
sat a man of few means.
He dwelled on his mistakes
that had left his life lean.

In that house in a place
by rippled waters’ edge
he saw just the faces
in the photos on the ledge.

Outside rang the birdsong
and the sun sent her rays;
the trees stood there strong
and the clouds went their ways.

But in that tiny home
a man just sat to dwell
to brood on being alone
and missed out nature’s spell.

When the changes come
will winter winds still blow?
What world will we see
as quicksilver higher flows?
When this time is past
will songbirds still be heard?
Will parents still tell children
of the bees and the birds?
Will grandchildren know about
lightning bugs in the dark?
Will lovers still know what’s meant
by butterflies in their hearts?
May those gifts that we leave
for those who come hereafter
not become the close
of this book’s final chapter.

The king of what was stands in silence
and surveys his sunsetted realm.
His spine is straight in stiff defiance
of the twilight of the kingdom he’d helmed.

On a plastered pedestal high he stands
surrounded by the waste of his times.
Carved into it, once acclaimed in his lands,
was his name, now covered by vines.

The pale sheen of low sun as winter nears
casts shadows across his etched face.
Its grooves grow deeper year after year —
he’s the gnomon whose shade this sundial has traced.

He takes no note of the thorny brambles
that have entangled his fixed stony feet.
With flinty gaze and wrapped in a mantle
of granite, he keeps watch through storms and sleet.

Now stripped of his titles and even his name,
the proud king of the ruin’s still there.
For while the long night has broken his fame,
still he stands, marked by his unbroken stare.

On a church, Mother Mary gazes up high
with her saving babe on her stone arm.
On her alabaster face: a cryptic smile
that has its own fine chiseled charm.

While I stand in the old town’s cobblestone street,
my mind sees me in a far distant place.
The visions I see speak of defeat,
a void that devours all grace.

I see myself floating in a brittle wood boat
with sails torn to shreds by the storms.
Frantically I toil to stay afloat,
tossed by black waves which ebb and reform.

Her disk halo of gold shines out in the dark,
glinting to those who sail by.
I ask her: tell me what can give me a spark
to let me soar up into the sky.

She offers no answer in so many words
and just smiles on, stonily serene.
In her silence is where her answer is heard,
a quiet reply — I know just what she means.

The rock of her tells me what I must hear:
No need to soar nor fly nor flee.
Let black tides flow past me ‘til they clear.
Like this old pale statue, just simply be.

Helicopter seed
comes to rest on the green moss —
A princess in bed

I once checked into an old hotel
that’s served guests for many a year.
The white-clad staff will serve you well
and greet you brimming with cheer.

Its handsome brick and stone façade
shines gold in the bright morning sun.
Inside, the red velvet furnishings’ a nod
to the lovers’ tall tales there spun.

The rooms are filled with patchouli scent,
or perhaps with a strong note of musk.
At first you’ll easily make the rent
and stay there from dawn until dusk.

Oh, how well could I in that chamber sleep
on starry fields of Elysium each night,
my baggage packed in cotton I’d keep
to stow it from whatever gave fright.

But the longer this hospitality I had
the more a locked hospital it became;
the doors that’d welcomed this young lad
soon rusted, harder to open again.

I chatted with the friendly concierge
and noticed the crease of his smile
was curled into the quirk of a sneer
while his light humor shifted to bile.

The mattress that once was thick and soft
grew coarse and lumpy with age
while the vistas seen from the gilded loft
were obscured by the bars of a cage.

The red velvet’s colors began to bleed.
All was gilded with the gold of fools.
Once this hotel had for me filled a need —
but it sought to make me its ghoul.

This hostel had to hostile turned,
its host was revealed as a warden.
With time I learned its charms to spurn
and escape to a greener garden.

Even now that hooking hotel calls,
a sultry siren who woefully wails
and summons her guests — or thralls? —
to deep sleep in her heavenly jail.

Some days on back I sat on a pub’s oak stool
and drew in the musty smell of its past,
its scent of old leather and spilled beer that pooled
under the floorboards in a sticky mass.

An old man came in and pulled up a chair
and he scratched at his stubbly beard.
His grey eyes had fixed me in a granite stare
and rumbled ‘til his raspy throat cleared.

He said, “The word ‘nostalgia’ comes from Greek stems.
It means the pain of homecoming.
We look to the past through a cataract lens
at a ‘home’ that’s made out of nothing.”

I asked, “You can’t go back to your home again?”
He shook his head, a woolen wisp of a sigh.
“That home exists in the land of pretend,”
he softly exhaled in laconic reply.

And then he stood and slipped away home
while the strains of “Jerusalem” played.
I sat in my cloud of memories alone,
from fog emerged in the present to stay.