A heart of stone
Not cold, hard, uncaring
But forged by the heat of the earth
To be strong, unyielding, forever...
Like my love for you

r

The words he wrote
could make a fence post cry

r

Sometimes you have to let the mare have her head.

r

Hard east against high tide
Black clouds and rainy skies
Straight at the breakers I ride
Dead reckoning away from lies
Taking those waves in stride
I'm dead reckoning

Lost sight of that straight line
Fifteen knots towards the rocks
First mate's empty of port wine
Siren calls back to the docks
Cutting hard portside to align
I'm dead reckoning

Dead reckoning to the docks
Blind from drinking brine
Fifteen shots at fifteen knots
Push that throttle to a whine
For now I'm feeling fine
Dead reckoning

I'm dead reckoning.....

r 25 Oct 13

Wake up rivers
Water is falling
From many clouds
This morning

r

You make me crazy
Make thoughts hazy
Can't concentrate at work
Sleeping is a quirk
You make me crazy
Keep it up

r

It is Tuesday
Not quite
An amusing
Day I find

I won't deny
October brings me 'round
September flies
October settles me down
Pumpkins and Halloween
I love to discover
New visions and carvings
Of jack-o-lanter
Handing candy to smiles awonder
Wish my young childhood days
Of October I remembered
But still miss sweet Septembers

r

What is it about September
Hearts aligned and remembered
Tomorrow the last day

Call me in September
Don't disremember
Remembrance one day away

Hearts can bind or break
Or forever to  forsake
Just one heart beat astray

Remember me in September
Forget me not in sweet surrender
For one more day

r

Mostly for working lunch
Though we have large break room table
But learned quickly that I don't enjoy
Tea Parities amongst my colleagues
r

The Creator
The original
Aboriginal
Indigenous  
Australians
In their Dreaming
Uncreated Baiame
The Sky Father
Creator of everything
But who created
This creator God
Mythological
Theological
Like everyones
Too similar and
Geographically
Universally spread
To be explained by
One Big Bang
But still I ask
Who created
The uncreated
Creator

I crossed a crystal bridge
A bridge of clear quartz crystal
Leading me to nowhere land
My rubber soul did whistle
I could see beatles through the sides  
And yellow submarines below
I decided to sit in and make no plans
And be a nowhere man but here
In this bridge of quartz crystal clear

r  22Sept13

She came from a favela
Steep ***** above Rio
Color of dark chocolate
And vanilla of mestizo

Worked the narrow streets
Walked them like a queen
Bad boys knew her beats
Her stir did leave a sheen

In translucent woven sheets
Swaying hips and pouted lips
Bad cops along her favela beat
Always whistling as they glimpse

Flava of favela became queen
Said so long to to steep streets
Tin built hut and streets unclean
Became the Queen of Rio

r  18Sept13

Until December
Will you remember
Will you remember me
Now September
Still a spark left in me
Stoke that spark
Spark as stark
As cold December
Keep me in your memory
Come new year
Don't know where...
Don't really care
Where I will be
Chasing embers
Once remembered
I'll remember
The spark
That stokes my ember
Come December

r  17Sept13

Before HP when trying to fall asleep
I imagined a blank white wall
It worked for me fairly quickly before HP
Then scrabbled letters started appearing
Keeping my brain from sleep
Now I try to envision a black chalk board
But the squeaking of the writing
Keeps me awake in dark
Eyes squeezed tight
Thanks HP

Twelve years ago today
The world changed for the worse

The New Lion of Damascus roars
Obama stuck,  Putin snores

The hangman
Riding town to town
In his creaky dusty black buggy
Sleepy eyed old mule pulling
Long-tailed fat round pet rat
Riding beside him
Both dressed all in dusty black
Neither smiling or frowning
From Tennesse to Missouri
Oklahoma then to Texas
Back again across the Mississippi
To Alabama or wherever called
Tools of his trade neatly bound
In back of the black buggy
A cheap hotel and clean black suit
Bow Tie tied neatly
A perfect knot and long coat tail
Takes the tools he needs for day's task
From black bag beside sweaty bed
Heads downstairs for another day
Just another job
Humming a sweet hymnal
As he climbs gallow stairs
Loops the noose tight 'round
Poor neck and offers cigarette
Politely as expected
Pulls black hood if requested
Awaits the nod and drops the trap
To cheers and jeers and sobs
Collects his bits of silver
Packs his gear and bags
And long-tailed pet rat
Has buggy hitched and hits the road
Dusty, humming hymnals
In his creaky old black buggy
Without a thought to next job
Down Georgia way
The hangman and his gear
Long-tailed rat and sleepy mule
Another day another dollar

r
6 Sept 13

She dwells in pain
Her Father
His tears do rain
The daughter
Holds the reins
In pain
And tears
And strength
In peace

r
4 Sept 13

Poetry is my inscapee
My outscapee
My escapee
All three

r
3 sept 13

The Salvation Army Soldiers
Should take on new roles
Be a little bit more bolder
Armed with their three poles
And ******* iron pots
Venturing across the world
To put out fires in hot spots
And demand the enemies
To turn to making plowshares
Place their indemnity
Bandoliers and bombardiers
Into those ******* pots
Manned by the Salvation Army
r

Getting serious my friends
The first cruise missile hits
Middle East will explode
The President I have supported
Needs to rethink this
Grow some cojones
Realize he is stuck between
A rock and a hard place
But we shouldn't cherry pick
Which bad guys to go after
Enough blood and treasure spilled
On sticking our noses in where they don't belong
But is GB and GD and VX
Worse than starving your nation
Want to go after bad guys
Go after that crazy ****** in North Korea
Ask yourself if Iraq and Afghanistan
Are better now than before
Plenty of bad guys here in U.S.
Time to stop being the policemen of the world
Listen, CINC
Let us worry about home
Yes, killing children with poisonous gas
Is despicable
But will missle strikes
Change the picture
Syrias as serious can be
Best to let war take its course
Than trying to change history
Another Rubicon
We don't need to cross

If I knock on your heart's door,
will it open with arms spread wide?

I remember well
The creaking of
One hundred year old
Pine planked floor
And the ticking
Of the 100 year old clock
In my family's old home
Before the highwaymen
Took it with the widening
Of Highway 91
But Mom got her new house
Set back just a little
She loves it and new amenities
At least they didn't steal the barn
Or clock
But I miss the creaking and the ticking
Of my childhood home
On Highway 91
Across from Stoney Creek
My real home

Abraham
Where is your son
He's lying dead
On a street in Lebanon
And the God of your fathers
Has left you alone
Wrap him in a white shroud
Cry out loud
Any sensible God
Took the first train out

r

Stepped on one today
A stone alone
What would it have to say
Not ******
Just relating
To that stone alone
Simply waiting
For another stone alone

r

She reached out her hand
Something to give to me
I was expecting her wedding band
Pain given freely
Her expression bland
Instead it was a Bumblebee
Surprised I was
Her gesture and her gift of tomorrow
Her tears because
Of laughter and not sorrow
I returned to her my eyes freely
Tears of another tomorrow
The sting of love gone steely

A semi-circle of white mushrooms
Around my crab apple tree
Usually I'd cut them down
But for this symmetry
Half circle evenly spaced
From each other and the tree
Odd arrangement crescent moon
It was meant to be
My crescent moon of symmetry

r

Who is it that comes from Edom, coming from Bozrah, his garments stained in crimson?  Who is this, in glorious apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength?  "It is I , who announce that right has won the day, it is I," says the Lord, "for I am mighty to save."
-Isaiah, 63:1.

Look to Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, all the world around you, and I. Time to get off your *** and do some saving. No disrespect intended, Lord.

r

Fishing for salmon
Stare that bear square in the eyes
Help you forget your gone friend
Have a hell of a good time
Fishing for salmon

Four patties of ******* he wears
Two upon each shoulder wing
Polished gleaming egocentric air
Marching like a king
His Chief of Staff
And parade of sycophants
Make me want to laugh
All aligned like **** ants
Until their buckets of *******
Are sloshed upon my desk
Right or wrong just do it
Another *******-filled day

Dragonflies and Damselflies
Symbols of good fortune
From water nymphs
To flying orchestra in tune
Beauty in symmetry
Fragile Forktail
Ebony Jewelwing
Common Whitetail
Eastern Amberwing
Autumn and Amber Meadowhawks
The Common Green Darner
Such beauty in variety
5,900 species of wonder
Ode to the Odes
Dragonflies and Damselflies
Another splendid nature code
Filling my skies

r  
4 August 2013

Looking out my Mother's back door window
Green pasture shining in wet dew
Forest of the Cherokee National
Surrounding my emerald view

Mom and brother still sleeping soundly
A little quiet time to enjoy and remember
Red Tailed Hawk circling sky roundly
Dad's century old barn with leaning oak timber

Dreaming of my future small cabin
Back in the corner of the high pasture
A picture of morning's shiny green satin
The view out Mom's window I capture

r

She constructs by hand
Seven circles in the sand
A seed of life
Part of the flower
Of her life’s power
In word and art
Oscillating vibrating
Harmonic healing
Sent to me
Sacred geometry
r  
1 Aug 13

I feel abused
My heart is stilled
When you're amused
My heart I spill
A heartfelt bruise
My love is still

Enough to fill
Your golden cup
Emotions milled
To grind enough
My heart is chilled
Your words are tough

My heart is kind
Yet you can't see
My love so blind
If I could be
Your man to find
Your love to be

Your love I'd be

r

Jun 1

In his eyes
I see myself
and in his smile
I see you
will he forgive us
will he forget
will he remember
what we put him through

The ebb and flow
the rising tide
no room to run
no place to hide
it's all behind me
it's all before
I finally made it to the shore
We finally made it to the shore

r
Mar 1

Some days are treasure
Some days we measure

Seconds that don't rhyme
Tic by tic time is time

I don't look at clocks
I don't own a watch

Time is time
The final rhyme

On purpose
On the surface

Birth till death
Counting breath

Time the final rhyme
Time is only time

r
Jun 23

Shiloh
In Hebrew " place of peace"
Didn't work out so
For brother Johnny or Uncle Reece
Nor many of Grant's Boy's in blue
Though now many a man
Does rest there in peace
On the field at Shiloh

r
Jun 9

When I was young
I broke all the rules
Made up my own
And broke them too
My teachers and Mom
Knew not what to do
They implored to my Dad
Who simply smiled
And said "that's my lad"

Forgotten bliss
Fallen in the dark abyss
Throw me a rope
For to hope
I can climb
Back in time
Bliss remembered
Love is tendered

r

Travelin’ man, giver of song
Wherever you are off to
Don't make it too long
A whisper of your shadow
A glimpse of your song
Tomorrow is new, yesterday gone

Darkness is upon you
Like a forgotten song
Lost in black water without view
World is awaiting on your dawn
Fear stands close, thin is spread thin
Travelin’ man, travelin’ song
Travelin’ man, come back strong

Yep

--- · May 7
Traded a sharp knife and pony
For a sharper wife