r - Hello Poetry

r Dec 2020

Some nights
I crack a window
to let out the stink
of darkness

unsheathe my knife
and think of carving
free my eyes

tossing them high
into a pine
so that they can see
all that isn’t going on
around me

instead I let the sharp
hard winter winds
of black starlight in

to fan the flames
of lonesome desire.

r Nov 2020

The beginning of an art

Some may think
a spark
is just a spark
a weak attempt
at a start
to a flame
when in fact
it is the beginning
of an art
found in the ashes
and stone cold bones
of a dark hole
in Zhoukoudian.

r Nov 2020

Gathering wood

When I think of those days, I only
remember gathering wood in the cold
in my black coat so I could get a fire going
in the cast iron of a gray early morning;
I dream what it is to be a man lying
beside a delicate woman, sad and quiet,
playing the mandolin, looking at her as
if she were a couple of plums together like
a cluster within reaching distance on the branch;
thinking of the lunar dust of her face, and how
her fingers were like feathers; I heard
the silence of the mill wheel not turning
in the stream and the wild turkeys not drinking;
I knew they had hypnotized themselves wide-
eyed and staring into the steel ax of the creek.

r Oct 2020

William Carlos Williams votes

So much depends upon...
how willing
you are to stand
in line
glistening in the rain
waiting to sign
your name
longing to right
the wrongs
and fix the broken
axles of the red
wheelbarrow
and maybe paint
it blue
as a Blue Jay
flying free
in a blue sky
above white chickens
like shadows
of clouds
over the barnyard.

Vote!

#vote

Oct 2020

Marshal Gebbie

The Fly hath Landed

The demon fly hath landed now intent upon it's task
**** Demon in its valedictory explorations grasp.
Embedded deep in kidneys, to cause me some concern.
A painful path to endgame and a Hellish lesson learned.

I pause a moment, think it out, it's one way or the other
I lost a mate the other day and last month, lost another.
Seems it is the season for the cataclysmic time
I'd rather it be elsewhere but I fear this one... is mine.

I've run a rough and winding track these rugged years of yore
Pulled the Dragons tail in jest and sought, yet, for more.
Rafted mighty rivers and flew the heavens high
And lifted my perception winging vaulting, clear blue sky.

I've known the velvet touch of love, the softness of her lips
The crash of waves on sandy shore caressing fingertips.
The swelling joy of childbirth, the pledge of mothers milk
And rock like bonds of marriage binding all within its ilk.

With thoughts a million miles away I've trudged this country lane
Pondered why, with voids approach, it engenders me no pain?
Wondering why it matters that the children shed a tear
When saddened, glancing passing eyes, are never really near.

Regret I'll never get to see my grove of rhodos bloom
Or sip the soothing whisky as I tap my toe in tune.
Or launch into the crazy surf and splash out to the rock
Nor lie in sun on baking sand admiring talent flock.

Meat pies with sauce at football with a cold beer in the hand
And the repartee with kindred minds in poetry unplanned,
That flash of inspirations' alliteration sprung
Brings the joy to mind of comradeship in Shakespeare's realm, unsung.

.....And then there's all that's left undone, the words, now, left unsaid
The notes of tragic violin hang in the air...unbled
And you there with the swimming eyes, what do I say to you?
It's all been grand, I kiss your hand....Adieu , my friend.... Adieu!

M.
Foxglove, Taranaki
New Zealand
20 October 2020