Where before me,
have my ages then gone?
And where behind me,
Are the coming new birth?
I think of sunlight and earth,
They lost without limit,
without end, without mirth.
In silence I sit alone,
As my tears fall down.
Adding water and salt,
To sunlight and earth.

Someday soon I will be
A feeble old man
Dozing somewhere in the sun
When all I can do I have done
And my life is but a shattered plan
What could be better than
Dozing there under the sun?

I would grow very still
As an old stone perched on a hill
And be content with that one
Thing that has always been kind
To me the warming sun.
I may grow deaf and blind
And never hear a voice
Nor think I could rejoice
With anyone in any place
And would soon forget my face
and love only the sun.
Because when I am weary and tired,
And cannot again be fired
By any small chance of hope
The sun will then be comforting
As bird-song in the spring

Give me only the feel
Of an old and comfy chair
Out in the air
And let me rest there
Moving not
Loving not
Only dozing till my days
Might be done
There under the sun.

When from the ending of my weary days
Into the depths of my sleep rush soon,
Such sweet and sour dreams of you.
What are these sugared dreams,
To lure bees humming hungry with lyrics
Buzzing quick past my window sill?

Have they from my many thousand thoughts,
Stolen the strange sour sweetness
Of the ever blossomy you.
Our flavors fused in a thousand fancies,
A spicy meld of mind teasing knots,  
in which we are most willingly bound as two?

What sharp tasting tunes, quick with pain,
Do the bees buzz out and back again.
How they tease each mornings wake
To hear their hungry music in my brain!
My day’s tastes have trouble for your sake,
As I find myself constantly hungry for you

I see you,
Shaking your flowers at me
with open invitation,
Then dancing away,
Deliciously trampling the grass,
Beneath your naked toes.

Let be,
My dreams that shiver under your breath,
You have the rest of the world to breathe on,
Do not tease me and prance away looking back,
I am too weary to play with you,
Let us instead make slow love,
Here in the tall grass.

Tell me I am needed,
In your sleep like air.
And not like whispers,
Momentarily there.

Tell me I am seen,
In the orbs of your eyes.
Stare into my face,
Present me no lies.

Tell me I am read,
Between pages of books.
A paragraphs end,
My prologue mistook.

When tired and old,
Lying down in our bed.
Kiss me like I'm young,
And taste what you 've said.

Such tears of despair,
The sounds of a poet,
are silently shed.

Ah, but what of despair…
Those sad soundless screams
of poetry forgotten.

Cut'em apart, still intact,
Tidy'm up, still they crack,
Those lives in separation,
A tiny taste of desolation

The pale heavens of the universe
refute a good morning to her
neither do the sky-punched stars
bother with an evening’s kiss.
This earth, where so many memories,
Among fine sentiments are buried,
could die in need of tender glance,
A cordial comment, or a little peace.
This damp blue ball is lonely,
so very lonely, as she views
the moon's cold cratered clothing,
while accusing the sun of being a thief.
It is a hot sun burning bright,
with many photons un-leased
in an attempt to pacify this earth
as the only living renter it keeps.

And eighty years
passed among mortals.
With pieces of life,
being laid on the board,
The carpenter takes,
his hammer home.
The work of the handle,
Grown tired and thin,
Hands of flesh,
Now turned to stone,
What he has created,
In this life he lived,
Has left him immortal.

The climbing vine,
With leaves and tendrils entwined,
Around my unused garden *****,
Such a beautiful sight they made.
Of that wooden handle worn smooth,
By my grasping fingers that grooved,
Lend me your beauty oh climbing vine,
For the garden of my soul to be soothed.

The clock on the wall
Keeps making faces
In an endless teasing
Of my time soon to come

Through the windows of a passing train,
dawn rain darkens lighter green,
this sudden color of the rain,
In passing fields revived,
Gives me urge to swelling surge,
A salty rain within my eye.

With no other lover but the quiet of night,
Here you find me in this same old room,
And as raindrops brighten my window light,
A sixty-watt bulb my head illumnes.
Out of the world these past many years,
I have not been ashamed to invite you here.
But still you cannot come too often,
No more than a lover, or a lifelong friend.

own no cross to drag through the rock,
just sit as a dog and shiver in the dark.

bite your tongue when heavy-hearted,
use the pain to advance some caution.

wild winds tangle thoughts confused,
summers storms blow but seldom sooth.

shiver at birth, a warmth now lost,
silence in sorrow, loss of the spark.

look close now, the ghosts have gathered,
speaking a sodden, vernacular language.

The grinding of the grain,
An intoxicating hum.
Hay bales piled high,
prickly building blocks.
We harvest as farmers,
and are self-sufficient,
Knowing the weather,
Of tomorrow will come.
Only after he ‘d stolen leisure,
From work on the farm,
Did he realize how long,
the summer days had become.
Among fresh cut wheat,
Standing there in the eve,
a cool breeze on his face,
Leftovers from the day,
To appease the nights fate.
Time to eat dinner,
And sleep.

Show yourself
you darkest of name-callers
Who shouts such vile words
From shadows ink thick with deceit
Have your lies forsaken the light?
Your vulgarity the best you can do?
Retreat from the cover of night
Draw not another laborious breath
In secrete you call out in longing
For the sweetest respite of a song

Who is to blame,
for my secret disarray,
like many patterns dyed
in summer fields of color?
Not I,
Who hides my grief,
In deeper shades of gray.
Just let the winds of sky
blow shut a cloudy passage,
that I might keep wisely then,
My many shades of sorrow,
behind me for a while.

What dank dark alley
have you abandoned this night,
crazy yowling trash can cat
to include to me in your song?
why beneath my open window
do you disturb my peaceful sleep?

Not through Spring’s eternal moon
Nor at lighted front of store,
Do you sing your crazy love-sick song,
With lonely yowls forlorn
Do you know I wonder
Where go sleeping souls to slumber?

Be gone your piercing lonely tune
Before I screech my angry song
Before I chuck my shoes at you,
Before you bring the dawn.
Begone, lonely trash can cat,
Allow my dreams reborn,

MY little turtle labors alone,
All other turtles have quit this year
No one will pause to stop and praise
Its measured pace of travel I fear,
Now that my turtle time is near.

Please accept my apologies
for pretending to not know you
If I knew you too much
I couldn’t help that either
I cannot accept this choice
in my double-edged world.

Poetry - may you be a lilted word,
May you be that unspoken quest,
in which all may wander in awe.
Let words with wings of bird,
Power of love, and grace of deer,
Be the inspiration of my message,
so that some may treasure,
the unheard cheer of all voices
through my silent words thus written.

Some of them met you
A few remained hidden
in their stretched-out tracings of time

Some harbor revenge
or plot their escape
as they run ruthlessly into their sin

Some linger lonely
at the foot of the mountains
exposed to the elements of love

Some owned your heart
Some gave it back
Some ripped it out and ate it

On the red rim of the rose,
A thin frost glistens,
Cold in my bedroom,
A bare bulb flickers.
Deeper grows my longing,
Part the curtains with wavering sigh,
To gaze upon the moon,
Single as the frosted rose,
Now cold outside my room.
Above I see the velvet sky,
Below I see the people scenes,
Of an ever-flowing tide,
Bitter between them drifts my sorrow,
Shall I dream at my dusty window?
Dare I admire the frosted rose?
For tomorrow the frost is gone.

Bought as a lark,
From the corner pet store,
A green and blue parrot,
vivid as newly leaved trees,
Talked always in human words.
And still they did to it then,
what has always been done,
To the oh-so wise and talkative,
They bought a cage with sturdy bars,
And shut it up inside.

Lights through a thousand dappled leaves,
Recall my mind from a noon day nap.
The shadow of a tree grows winding on my wall,
Through the variegated path of my window screen.
The tree on a hill shares the sun's bright light,
Warming my shades only partly drawn.
All life is now shadow in my room it does seem.
And now I know not if I wake or I sleep,
Music breathes through the silence to sing,
Wind in the shadows tree leaves or a song?
Drawn from a violin with shadows for string,
Be this visual music within my dream?

Her barefoot patter on the floor,
My straining ears do hear no more,
So I will cut in half what minutes waste,
Those memories of her smiling face,
To be bound up tightly then be placed,
In a warm sunbeam outside my door,
To be released then gently in the night,
When once again my love arrives.

Unfold this dream
Against the light,
crafted hills and streams
Finely painted nature

Thin clouds, light rain.
Far stars, faint moon.
I sit, I look, the green moss grows
Soon becomes one with my clothes.

She: Enticing waters with luminous waves,
         that can tempt the dead from their bed.

I: The sinews of my soul stretching for both,
    Her beauties form from where it is fed.

She: A wondrous storm in a turbulent sea
         that has taken hold of the deepest of me

I: Refusing to slip off to a peaceful sleep
   until her waves of desire sing sweet release.

Curiously,
My books weigh no less,
after I read them.
But how can this be,
After so much they have given?

Stones pressing every soiled surface,
of my well-worn soles,
far and hard they have walked.

People expect so much and realize,
So little of the horrors,  
that others go through.

Does this frailty now become me?
Should it now become my weakness,
To grow old with my time?

I would say no.
Even old smiles have need,
to maintain a past happiness.

Still I listen for that hidden life
that to calls to me
hopeful healing for a well-worn soul.

It’s raining outside, once again.
Water leaking on my head.
As I lie here soaking
In the sorrows,
Of this miserable life I’ve led.