In the orphanage a child
cowers from cursing men outside.
She wants to climb back into
her dead mother’s womb
and hide inside its warm, soft,
un-edged safety,
where no explanation is needed
or reason to hide under splintered
staircases or run the gauntlet to basement
bomb shelters, existing minute to minute
with strangers until the dawn arrives with her
deliverance and she refuses to be born.


Michael J. Whelan

In clear dawn’s prescient light I saw
Integrity of man withdraw,
Withdraw from that integral grace
Illuminated in that place.
A clear blue light in silhouette
Of moon and mountain pirouette,
A truthfulness of stark relief
Quite unencumbered by deceit.
Unencumbered by the paws
Of those who bare discordant claws,
They who twist God’s clear blue light
To manifest their grip on might,
Those who would, quite by perchance,
Enlist oblivion’s nuclear dance.

This hanging crescent moon aloft
Above our mountain’s darkened croft,
Delicately etched in vivid glow
Of promised new dawn’s velvet show…..
Dependant now on exchanged themes
Of thermonuclear warfare’s screams.

But then…..
Old soldiers call from War afar
To we who listen, jaw ajar,
To wisdom earnt by good blood spilt
Be of Field Grey or Scottish Kilt…..

“Fight no more this curse of War”
They, from beyond the  grave, implore,
“We sacrificed our youth for thee
So thou might dwell in harmony”

In clear dawn’s prescient light they saw
A slit of sunshine’s open door,
Where sanity, just, could pave the way
For laughter’s peal to save this day.

M.
“Lest We Forget “
ANZAC Day
25 April 2017
HAMILTON, NEW ZEALAND

We're in the sun and I'm moving from your mouth
to your jeans, we're watching the stars and we're moving
We're going down the green boulevard and we're cruising
you speak Romanian, I speak you, we're going to far
and moving to the beat as one and the wind blows the hair
in my face and I got news for you, I can see you just clearly
as I could before, carefully, barely hanging on and catching movies

I can't keep away from your kiss, back and forth want to feel
the rest of you and all of you can't wait to catch you all alone
we're in the sun and I'm moving from your mouth
to the hole in your heart, tell me how you feel and who you are
you speak barely, your rhythmic breaths tell me all I need to know
waste the day and spend all the time in your pockets, all alone
floating around your head and hanging midair in your palms like
a red balloon

I am the wind
the snow flurries the cold
the heat of the sun burning
a lump of coal
keeping you warm
I am all
but your thoughts
yearning

Silence
I know her
like the back
of my hand
an eyebrow
under a cross
of ashes
the cloud
I followed
for so long
now I listen
on lone walks
for the song
of stones
beneath the creek
I once called
home sometime
so long ago
I can't remember
why I ever listened
to her at all.

~
all my poems are prayers on a good fun-Sunday

or a piece thereof;
wishes or curses,
longings, hopes, and a boatload of
'wouldn't it be loverly'

absent tho the conditional,
the if -then continuum,
no promises or persuasive pressures,
deal making sort of pointless
as words are directed internal to the
stew, the mix of matter and sensibility,
that seems to try and semi-govern me,
my own game controller Xbox apparatus

risen Sunday morn church in bed
first poem prayer issued,
a prone proclamation:

let me always allay
the needs of others owed
before mine owned

I like it,

maybe I'll call it commandment #110,
which means got all day to come up
with a couple more - good fun-Sunday*

4/23/17
8:53am