Soul
Alive, astir
Gliding, enshroud, obscure
Awaken my tormented soul
Nomad

I Walk through the lonely ancient woods
And hear the voices from the Cedars of Lebanon
Whispering a truth known to all
But remembered by few

A felled branch reveals the wound
That smells of comfort and wisdom
Your knots are like the eyes of God
Scrutinizing my every intentions

I feel at ease as I rest in your strong arms
And think --
If I had a choice for a final resting place
It would be under your majestic feet

You seek a crown of gold
And yet the heart is fallow
A famine of the soul
Unbeknownst and unconcerned
The poor hunger for food and shelter
And you have an appetite that’s never satiated
The many feasts of endless delicacies and wealth
Has not spoiled your cravings
Yet they who are lacking in all that is tangible to you
Have something you lack and cannot acquire
They give to others that have less than them
And feel their anguish
And revel in their friendship
Their crown is empathy

Music
Passion, wistful
Devouring, seizing, engulfing
Mellifluous voice of the soul
Fluid

What we hear
We don’t understand their plight
As we are more afraid of them than they of us
Thank God they are over there and not here
Their ***** little disease will ruin us more than religion
Thank God they are over there and not here
Some impenetrable God-Shield has protected us from the pestilence
We must guard against those who would bring them in our bubble

What I feel*
I understand their dilemma  
And love them
And want to hold them
And thank God, for they will find peace someday
I wish more would help and nurse them
If only I had the skill to care
And do more than pray

Eyes closed to a fading light
The last beat of a tired heart
Muffled voices, a murmured prayer
A pathway unresolved
What lies ahead?
Endless slumber?
A new beginning?
Not knowing is what I fear.

Glistening crowds shuffle in detached cadence
Sweating long necks on a production conveyer
The boardwalk
Pungent saltwater and fried dough coalesce
Ocean meets carnival

Teen screams and seagull shrieks
A multitude of color variation
Red to black
A scent of Coppertone and Noxzema
To ease the pain of the vain and pale

Summer at Happy Hampton Beach
Arcade upon arcade
Clinking bells and whirly sounds
“You're a Winner!”, the mechanical voice screams
Summer fades as do the summer flings, until next year

The chill of an autumn morning
A rising steam as the fallen leaves exhale
The lonesome trees have given up their glory
A carpet of red, yellow, orange, and brown

An overcast sky with no definition
Is but a blur
Movement indiscernible
There is wisdom in the sky, revealed to a few

The smoke of the day’s first fire ascends
Wafting its familiar fall fragrances
Brings warmth and comfort to the soul
And campsite memories of long ago

We pass the bleak and barren cornfield
Stippled with autumn’s harbingers
The Raven
They stare with the blackest of black eyes

A cast shadow, my other self
Speaks not in flowery meter
But waits time immortal
In the darkness of a conscious mind

In spite of myself
Itself
Yourself
Drawn on every word I utter

Anticipating a near, full, or half truth
The night has no faith in reality
But a certainty that light is a millennia away
And that shadow rules twilight

My shadow has departed
A dim luminescence has not the power to prevail
So casts my follower to the depths
To wallow in ineffable sorrow
Where heartache mutates to anguish, to scourge, to death
And lucidity has no foothold
And light, no admirer

The heart, mired in the thick black sauce
Beats less for love but rapid with deceit
A craggy instrument that lacks the elegance,
Of the newborn

Awakened each day to seek new meat
To ****** upon and ensnare
Her waking and ending thoughts
Seek to tarnish the golden rule

Mrs. Ess, you are a sight to sea, and see, and si
The hair on the hairless, rise to heaven
While those of us in your presence
Seek a shadow to hide and peek not

The cornstalks vanished overnight
Shaven fields once flowing, green and gold
Like Dad’s evening whisker stubble
Ghost limbs of the cornfield

Flocks of nomadic Ravens
Feast on the invisible
And scowl with those empty black eyes
Impervious to man’s judgment

And I think,

There is nothing as beautiful
Than the first snow on a barren field
Shadows playing with the evening light
And dance among the vacant mounds

The Soul, my eternal interloper
Disciple of numerous incarnations
And admirer of the disembodied spirit
Cast from me, my dear

What are you good for?
For I truly do not understand your counsel
My Albatross in life
Shadowy in death

I wait for a glimpse of your light
How do I draw the curtains to
Enlightenment
How many more manifestations?

Days and dawns have risen and fallen
My mood, like the New England weather
Has transformed in short time
Resembling the howling nor'easter
Each greeting, cold and methodical
And when I close my eyes
I can still hear your rapacious voice,
After these many years
Am I the dying abode that you inhabit?
The one, that gives you life with each thought
Be gone, you devilish succubus

Winter nomads
Reclined in a Maytag box
One after another, like Legos
Discarded “Hungry, Please Help” signs
Defines this squalor
Young or old, it shows no discriminating
Countless families, countless vets, countless children
Are lost to this
I am afraid to stare on their plight
Afraid of self-fulfilled prophecy

Your silken skin, trembling to the touch
A scent of sandalwood, wafts as it soars
Your pant, accentual-syllabic verse
Beats ever faster, no ration of time

Awkward moments as two become one
An everlasting symphony of fire
Quenched, after the crescendo of the night
Descending from a dream all in my mind

How many good memories have I destroyed?
Each one, a treasure to another
A string of pearls
And like the portrait of two lovers
I chose to bow out
In remembrance, I have ruined many lives
A kindly soul allowing me to merge
But I was never fully integrated
Always looking to egress at the slightest transgression
I fear I have doomed many an honest spirit
To think hard of me and my character
It would have been better if they had never set eyes upon me
And continued on their journey, unencumbered
Never knowing the name of this lost nomad

In the coastal forest at Odiorne Point
Paths meander under and over
Bramble so odious as to create an impenetrable wall
And distant sound of swell and surge
My nose recoils from the endless spoor of sea
Where upon a rustling of leaves drew my attention
To the vain wanderings of a scant grey squirrel
If I were a meager rodent of the furry tail persuasion
I would have purpose, direction, and courage against the iron horse
However, I am just a man of no resolve, course, or valor
Therein lies the rub
And coastal jaunts should never be made by depressed men

Her solemn eyes shares the work of a torn heart
She gazes into a darkened abyss she calls her melancholia
A place, cold and familiar, like a bedroom closet
It is neither open nor closed; the home of dim secrets

She feels and feels and feels until numb
Detached is far better, oh sister of her apathy
Where is the strength to rise?
To harvest again the morning sun

It takes all her power as she clings
She fights to remember that once she was happy
A gleaner of laughter and hope
She is worthy of a second chance

Your path is well worn
Like the old Indian trails still visible in winter
Your life has left a wake of possibilities
Its ripples, forever spreading – wide, firm, unencumbered, vast
To think of autumn and feel the evening chill for
You are embedded in my every thought
Anger, love, discontent, beauty, helplessness, ecstasy
I am ready to find my cliff edge
To spread my arms and leap
Knowing the perfection of gravity and its consequences
I fear that our entanglement has been broken
Magnets, repelling with the same polarity

In the morning, I gather my thoughts of yesterday
Like the foraging chipmunk, collecting acorns
And stuffing them miserly in my jowls
The past is sustenance for a somnolent soul

As age condemns my faculties
I pull, from my once copious jowl
A jewel of sorts
A garnet set in fool’s gold

My memory is manufactured
Assembled and disassembled
No longer what was or is or will be
But was and is and never has been

I confine my thoughts to winter
Where barren fields and sterile trees
Offer less to recollect
And empty my jaws of these useless reminiscences

Pendulous eyes, weary and bleak
Immoveable shadows, the unseen torrents
Coyly divulge the once impetuous spirit
On his shoulders, he carries a colossal weight
For his is a cleft vessel, rudderless and floundering
The rise and fall of each swell, brings neither hope or despair
He contemplates the gilded life, an absurd apparition
And slithers back to obscurity where the worm and dreams cohabitate

She spies the ants in bewilderment
A linear and meandering path
Undulating like a wave on a flat ocean
They are deliberate and sure

The ant spies the girl with indifference
Her path is unknown and random
Undulating in and out of reality
Her scars are deliberate and self-inflicted

The woman spies the man
His path is like the girl and the ant
Undulating like a *** of boiling water
The wounds he exacts are deep and copious

I am what I am, or who I want to be
Sewn from the ethereal playground
I am what I am, and just pretending
Thrown from heaven to seep in earthly goo
I am what I am, lifeless and full of ambiguity
Favored in childhood by no one
I am what I am, leftovers again
Wishing to enter the otherworldly mind again
I am what I am, and will be evermore

My capricious mind
Where have you wandered today?
Who have you offended?
What retribution awaits?

I let you out to absorb the Sun’s rays
And you amble off to seek shade
Your stubbornness has no limits
As you fail to return at the appointed time

My unsympathetic mind
Why have you turned your back on your friends?
Do they not attend to your ego?
Like flies on carrion, their interest is symbiotic

This morning I had a premonition
It was perplexing and brought consternation
There was a rabbit that crossed my path
So many bad things happen to rabbits

The fragrance of a memory
From childhood long ago
I’m brought back
To a fenced in back yard
Crayola blue sky
A burnt umber ground
Islands of green and yellow grass
The scent of Summer Hill wafts
As the unseen is revealed
A dream is remembered then forgotten,
And you say it didn't happen
I recollect the aroma that says it did

The vastness of the summer field
Has lost its innocence to autumn yield
From whence the green has turned to brown
A once joyous day returns a frown
But with spring’s planting, revived and healed

Refrain oh urgings of wanderlust past
My sails have lost the wind, on teetered mast
The hearty bellows of a nor’easter gale
Has caused my depth to weep and wail
And fear the evil my spirit amassed

I am a farmer’s soul; born to seed and harvest
A reaper of words, and mortal darkness
I seek from all around, and all within
And dream of a life that might have been
Where love past is all but heartless

The oak tree revisited
It’s been twenty eight years since I visited the oak
Still majestic in the over growth
Towering above its brothers
Hours spent gazing in your eyes
Arms out stretched, calling me to your *****
The last time was after she left
And I thought of dying at your feet
But you gave me hope, old oak
Ageless in your foundation
And my many woes have you endured
I call you friend, ancient oak

Ragged stone cliffs frame a wanting sea
The podium of black moods
Grounds of final thoughts
The twenty second swan dive
There are easier ways
I’ve been falling for fifty years
And the bottom seems no closer
I can slow the descent with outstretched arms
A type of crucifixion without the nails and sin
You have no idea what goes through a mind in free fall
There is no reminiscence, only now
And still I hear it said that there’s someone in a darker place
I know; I passed her on the way down

Change is a truth that has many meanings
Many paths that divert and transform
From good to bad
Bad to good
To mediocrity and back again
Change has brought me full circle
Like the seasons
Continually in flux
Aroused by love
Or a word
Or a purpose
Or the realization that I must change
For the sake of change

Perceptions of the man I am
An amorphous facade that blinks in and out of existence
That counts its lifespan with every beat of my heart
There is no permanence or longevity
Because that is what I choose
And what I choose is fleeting
Like a first love or a wispy cloud
I cannot define the man
Or claim to know my own intentions
Because they are fluid and unwieldy
And harken me to a time when darkness ruled
And light was a concept without meaning
Or validity, or attainability

A syncopated moment
Drifting, suspended, and finally, evaporated
The moment before the ecstasy
Never completely fulfilling that obligation
But enough to defer for a later time
Yet knowing there will never be another time
Why is it that leaving is always a cold and foggy moment?
Confusing thoughts of euphoria and dismay
All in the singularity of a syncopated moment

I took a gamble and asked the question
A spectacular mistake not to see the irreverence
In your quantum answer
A parting shot across my bow
That sinking feeling

See the people watcher
Still as a mantis
Endless ambient sounds, unidentifiable
Does not prevent his gaze
He studies her eyes; her smile
And undresses her mind
The watcher finds himself
Transfigured
Her thoughts are not easily uncovered
A coffin, sealed; undefiled
The watcher will only find him,
Looking out as he looks in

Of naked thoughts, unbridled and free
Scattered to the wind, a dearth of harmony
A rip-tide of bellowed speech and angst
Ready to pull apart this ragged seam
And erupt into a festering wound
Divided are two houses with splintered factions
Erases with ease, that which is sacred  
Even to the ungodly
What hatred and guile exists
That they cut off their own heads while declaring victory
A foreshadowing of the times to come
Must we burn down our own house?
And rid ourselves of the most defiant.
Or seek to persevere and gain back dignity
And harmony and charity and peace

He has no choice but to pound her back,
to get her to let go of my arm as she bites down hard.
She says she hates me because I pulled her hair when she was a child,
I am a vicious man who lacks control over my anger.
I don’t disagree with her memories, but she adds more than I can remember,
In the moment, I can have blind rage and not remember a few minutes before.
She thinks I hate her, but I don’t. How can I convince her otherwise now?
I am no longer Father. Dad. Pops. I am my first name.
I see the wall that I created whenever I try to talk with her,
Not made of wood, but concrete. It’s made of a Roman mixture that will last for thousands of years.
My wife says, “Give it time”, but time doesn’t erode this wall.

A full moon
Swathing white light
The illuminating ethereal fire
Rests upon and rest beneath
Amidst a midnight forest
Where silence calms the restless trees
The unearthly glow has a story to tell
For those whose manifestation is brought in question
Accept the light that is a reflection of the day
Drink its wisdom and immerse in its wonder
For tomorrow is another day
And as the heart grows dim, the moon’s phase wanes

The oak tree stands upon firm ground; an ancient
agreement with the earth. Autumn leaves agree to
nourish an infertile land if the contract is ratified. The
monsoon winds have no arrangement and are indifferent.

The snows of Kilimanjaro blanket a primordial volcano
and has an agreement with the rivers. Its melting glaciers agree
to flow freely and nourish a thirsty land if the contract is
confirmed. The sun has no arrangement and is cold and unmoving.

The soul resides freely in each of us. Ours is an immortal covenant.
If we agree to honor our bodies and humankind, life’s pact is
affirmed. Death has no arrangement and is uncaring and heartless.

I have a memory of those days
In Maine, with crashing coastal waves

When reading was a future right
Mom read, “Blueberries for Sal” at night

And that huge nameless tree in the field
At dark, a dinosaur concealed

Walking a stray black cat with a string
That ran up a tree and could not cling

Mom had to climb that tree, pregnant
And retrieve the remains and remnants

I remember those days, quite well
And the fake Christmas tree smell

The revolving multi colored light
That lit our fake tree until Twelfth night

In Maine there is snow, whiter than white
And memories that induce me to recite

Cleft chin and sullen eyes
Scour the grey, lifeless sky
For signs of the retreating moon,
And the after-glow of her vanishing soul

Must I wait another day or night?
With expectations of another revival
The rise and fall of her ephemeral spirit
It slashes and flays before it slumbers; restless and tortured

I watch with enigmatic wonderment
How do I accept the wounds, bound with salt and sea-foam?
The passion of deep red fluid that runs through our veins
That spring like geysers from a gentle touch

We wake to the moon glow and dispelled dreams
Gaze upon the ceiling in the dark
And from it, all moving things appear and disappear
“Particles”, I exclaim!

Rise up placid moon,
Through narrow bands of fiery cotton *****
From indigo to cobalt blue sky
Your motion, docile and free
And that sliver of silver light
Your cycles are said to guide the uninitiated
When you are full, they burst
For you are the light of the underworld
Full to new, new to full, and everything in between
Your shadow hides a secret as does mine
But yours is easier to reveal
There will come a day when earth shall release its bond
And you will be free from earthly influence
Just as death will discharge this soul
To meander from our earthly bodies
Free from the confluence that is body and soul

The four leaf clover
Springs mystical compass points
North, east, south, and west

Encapsulated in time,
Refusing to release me from its clutches
Only to relive all my imperfections
Over and over and over again
Time is a perplexing thing
Moving forward and still,
We are trapped in the moment
It ravages the beautiful
And turns us to dust
To quote from a wise old sage,
Is to speak the obvious
For we are all a wise old sage

There is a hole -- I dug
A thousand miles deep
And it's my only exit
Smooth, shorn walls guarantee my entrapment
A self-imposed exile
The light that once illuminated our love
Has grown dim, if not, extinguished
I sit contemplating my situation
And thus conclude that not even Atlas
Can support this burden on his shoulders
Darkness is now my only ally

Upon a path that is no more
A way, a way, deep in memory
The natural parting like hair on a newborn
Having a beginning and an end
Pause, as you look upon the path
That is no more or will ever be
And the wind will whisper in your ear to remind
That this path belonged to another
Yours is there
Along the fence that borders the meadow

I hear you coming with every crack of the knees
The air of your reproach stifles my breathing
And still, you are ten years past
Your ghostly presence has not abated
For I am small and inconsequential in your memorial
A toadstool among the Sequoias
I see an incomplete light through the canopy
In this dim and musty forest
Where fern and Lady Slipper does not comfort
This will be my shame
Content and complacent with this situation
Afraid to cast off his manifestations
This will be my downfall
Death isn't the end
Memories doth prevail

Nocturnal spirits ablaze with the
Mark of the weary. Encased souls,
Comforted by the sounds of her exhales
She reaches for oblivion with outstretched arms

Her minor catastrophes delineate the obvious
But what of love?
Its cold and calculated lies have no place in the night
She thinks

The sparks of the firefly, dance in the firmaments
Ripples of thought plunder the silence of the darkness
She wants to jump in the abyss
A baptism of fire

A mood as dark as a winters midnight
Haltingly adrift, she is rudderless
Bound to a coastal route
As she nears the quay, she cries out
But emits no sound
As strong currents
Guide her soul
To deeper depths
And perils
Where light has no importance
A salient angle away and afar
She collapses in upon herself, like the Black Hole
Black does not describe its murkiness
She is lost to humanity

Caught in your thicket of embellished verse
Trite but resolute
Efforts to crack the indestructible  

Here you say:
Willowy white Lily-of-the-Valley
Softly flowing waves of ecstasy
Delights a recessed heart
And resurrects the willful soul

I say:
No one knows the heart of one
Cast onward towards the billowy grey
Destined to revive
My vain attempts at life