Once I said I love you, when once was weedy wild.
Simple things were clear then, once I was a child.
Once I said I love you, when fair my heart was true.
Trusting, fine a virtue, then love called me unto you.
Once I said I love you, when free without a care.

My heart now put out to you, then was my love exposed
Once I said I love you, when met with mute repose
My heart bestead, your truth bewrayed, bereft myself betrayed
Once I said I love you—then what, do you suppose?

From all around an angry murmuration builds–
floods the sky bleak with sudden fear.
Beneath this dark and swirling firmament
Like flights of fletchless arrows fly, misdirected,
in search of molted feathers lost long ago
their course no longer true.
Fledgling feathers, once dipped in founders’ wisdom ink
on eagles’ wings once flew–
Gather now, ye angry birds of parrot-talking minds.
Gather round with swarming might upon our tree of life
now darkened, heavy weighed, casting shadow onto our dawning day,
mocking birds with angry words: ditto ditto, same same say.

What is the way that brought us here upon these twisted branches?
The grand deception distracts while the devil does its task.
Without our conviction, we are vitiated, from first to last.
Now complicit, merely witness to this swarming ******–
In despair, we watch in shame, and fear it is too late … again

From all around the silent sound of shadow
casts doubts, suspicion and danger, obscures the way to change.
Silent the sound yet still we flee in flight to fight the shadows    
of some supposed specter.           
White picket the sword, self-righteous the shield,          
to fend off the foe we wield.

What is this diminisher of hope and limiter of all victories gained,
that holds diminuendo till silent the hope fades away?

It grips the spirit in restrain and defeats more wonders than we will know.
Awareness, the armor against this phantasm’s game.        
All fear, but most fear change.
It is how it has always been; it is how we’ve always done:
senseless solace to safely slumber in, content, unaware of newborn’s hope,
assuaged, eyes closed, diminished once again.
In stealth through whispering wires, silent whistles on the air transept
Now Signal fears . . . of fear itself --- Great words, once meant to transcend                            
The seed of fear implanted, vilest of all sleight of hand.
Phantom fear fed the flame that forged mock yellow cake.  
The way we fed and raged on cue! In fear we were led again.  


Blood drained, gold gained . . . bow ye by loathsome men.
Now behind the wall we are fed again.    
Placebo, prophylactic farce we pretend–now safe from–them?
Demons o’er all the doors–alas, fear’s chain remains.
Fear’s vile serpent’s chore complete;
its hiss remains; we cannot change.
“’Twas ever thus, ‘twas ever thusss”
Forevermore our sad refrain?
  
In a shadow in a cage,
old things pass away,
and new things become new along the way.

From all around a mournful murmuration sounds,
as the velvet muffled clap of feathers frantic flap.
A flooded sky of murmured words,
of rumors’ twist and flashing twitter bugs
feed the swirling fowl with bitter fermentation.
Like flights of flagrant flocks, flushed out like bats on broken wing,
a desperate flail until the party’s end.
How strange to guard a nest atop the keep wherein a serpent lies–
To feed and shield a lowly green greedophile,
With bloated belly belching out a hot-air diaspora
of diabolic seeds.  Take heed!
The serpent does feed on its own!
Is this a tower on which to aspire? ‘Tis what the dodo said.
Gather round, ye foul mocking birds, and sing a tune ye all know:
Hey ditto-ditto, the devil and the fiddle, quick now jump to the tune.
Gather round the leaning tree of life, flap-clap with wounded wing,
a silent echo bring.
Beware the mourning dove that weeps a melancholy song,
of woe for hearts, diastole with bitter fermentation’s flow.

Fast dawn the days
begin anew eternally.
Toil left in lieu of morrow's light
remain in weighty gravity.

Urged on by our days' brief light
and rainbows' brevity.

Upon a scalloped splintered throne,
room enough for skin and bone,
beneath a clinging lead cloak dwells
a heart beating forth
from shadows' darkened well.

Here reigns low the sound of
melancholy's black velvet bell
whose tone sustains the torment
of a silent soul's refrain:
a munted, numbing, muted theme,
despair's  plangent  lament.

This reverie of subtle force
depriving hope's desire
presses mournful tears of self-defeat---
leaving sallow days of same and sorrow,
draining dreams of evermorrow.

P. Suess

Where does the bird hold up the sky?
Where time tells wisdom to the sun.
Where mystic songs strike off the clouds---
With obscure varied cryptic sounds.
Here a winged celestial voice sings.
The watchers' vigil there begins.
While echoed color and feathered mysteries found.
With a wisp they disappear.
The watcher is the volunteer.
A challenge fair remains the game,
forever novice made again.
Within this temporal realm of glory.
Below the sky held high and bright.
This novel fate befalls each flight.

P. Suess

I must face the fear
and coming sorrow
and with the loss, embrace
and endure this journey
into fate's tumult braced.

Yet I fear
and still I fear
too soon this coming sorrow
too soon to dance alone
with shadows of those
no longer there.

P. Suess

Tears as life's water dew
Sustain the flowers within our heart.
Each tear a flower tends
For whom these fairy blooms.

Donning autumn's royal colored cloak
and crown bedight---
Adorned with fallen glowing leaves
as titian hair and flaxen husks
wove with wheats englodened sheaves.

Softened ochred gourds
anchor draggled rooted vines
beneath the wind strewn hay.
The shifting sun of shortened days,
The fading light and mist and shades of grey---
Embrace the seasoned autumn,
spiced with wisdom's sage.

P. Suess

The dove does offer comfort to the heart
and soothes with velvet wing
a child’s yearning cry for more.
It sounds with tender tranquil tone
to tend on spirits wounded woes.
In some it hears a soul that cries
Then coos a mellow tone that balms
and holds beneath a gentle wing
an ethereal mystic shining thing . . .
It heals

Now with herself and her fame I see her in the field.
Brushing, brushing winter’s coat from off the horse Icelandic.
Undrun in his herd of three plus she—so symbiant the scene.
As a close kin’s comfort, kindly is her clan to keep.
Contented with the small stout-hearted beasts,
yet longing for the days she loved, tending to her geese.
Dreaming of the sun that shone upon the yard
that cast a shadow of a tree, across the scrap and scrabble ****.
There she wondered of her time grown upon “The Seed”.
Cool fresh morning shade and light
stirs the nesting bird’s warm chest
to shift upon the precious nest.
The clutch awaits the day. Safe shells to life give way
Just as Undrun will run no more upon Icelandic shores,
the goslings have long gone, leaving her forevermore.

One warm summer evening, early,
Resting in the cosmos weary
To kip upon a pillowed disk
Within corollas white and blue
Enfolded in one satin petal
Clutching to its gold dust revenue

A bee, black and yellow, sleeping,
Swaying on cosmo's slender stem
Dreaming, gliding with wings abuzz
Dreaming of its flowers tended
Dreaming of many more to come
Dreaming of its royal ambered home
Now so far far away

P. Suess