#distilled
hits my system
and I shake
six days fermentation
aged for four years
in oak barrels
walks across my grave
I've distilled time
into a shiver
Dec 8, 2024
Dec 8, 2024 at 6:36 AM UTC
#*Death stands at
The broken door
At despair
None to repair
Life stands still
Up the hill
Lonely the breeze
Plays at its will
To sway
And move along
The winds of change
At every bend
Stands the door
Repaired hinged
And life moves on
Clear, distilled*#
Jun 16, 2020
Jun 16, 2020 at 12:19 PM UTC
Storm the beach with sand-filled eyes.
Burying hatchets along the way.
Let the turtle dove rest in your palm.
Hum the hymn for the sinful demise.
Bless the butcher and embrace the calm.
Lay in the gravel, embrace the newest day.
Driftwood and briar leaves, brambles and hay.
Dance with your demons, sever your earthly ties.
Destroy all around you, burn down the psalms.
Just turn off your mind, your balance, your sway.
It is time now dear child, you shall retire your qualms.
It is time now young darling to release your final sighs.
May 29, 2020
May 29, 2020 at 12:13 AM UTC
The poem was inspired by a particular photo of the WT C, and after that by my first visit to the 9/11 Memorial. On the day of 9/11, I was working about a diagonal mile away, and from our windows, we could see people jumping to their death.
Open sky annulled
to bordered lines of
uptown edges,
worldview momentarily
forcibly redefined by
memories of buildings and sadder days,
recollections of pillars of biblical smoke rising
A photograph
makes me look up,
and sit down historically,
need to catch a breath,
to rest mentally,
upon a storied small bridge's steps,
that I well recall,
a disappeared street stoop.
all were rubble then and once
upon that day.
Wear, tear, and older eyes distill perspective,
but the hardy heart is hardly stilled
by the recognizable gray upon
bon vivant gray reflective surfaces of
memories of buildings and sadder days
So today, on a reborn street,
I rest upon reconstituted speckled curbstone,
the city's lowered down ledges,
the city's lowered down-town boundaries,
constantly redrawn, but
nonetheless, always rebuilt from their own
regenerated stony compost,
and the NY passersby doesn't even notice
a man, head in hands,
silently weeping, thinking that:
We throw away so much we should have kept.
We keep so much we should have thrown away.
Lose keepsakes, but keep our mysterious sadnesses
locked away in compartments that open only to
benedictions uttered in ancient tongues.
Make your own list,
be your own curator,
catalogue visions of sophomoric triumphs,
museum mile pile
those early poetic drafts,
be unafraid of memories
raw and ungentrified,
overlaid, buried underneath
postmortem of dust-piles of senior critiques
Finally went downtown to see
where the blessed water falls
into catacomb pits that once
were the foundations
of buildings that ruled the cityscape,
downtown anchors
for a modern city that exists
only because it was built on
million year old granite bedrock
Stone monuments are stolid, discrete.
Memories are of grayed, frayed edge consistency.
Negatives resurrected that survive digitally,
all blend synthetically, layer upon layer,
essence distilled in a single,
black and white photograph
that serves to
disturb complacency,
awaken stilled pain,
reflections suppressed,
are restored
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 6:36 PM UTC
Pure, clear,refreshing,
Offers life,
Turbulent,stormy, tempestuous,
Drowns life.
Apr 25, 2018
Apr 25, 2018 at 4:48 PM UTC
The water in the glass is clear as a pool
It cools my throat in relief
I have been dying of thirst
Without even knowing
What it is like to drink water
Playing in puddles of mud and moss
I never thought to search for higher ground
Keeping like a child
Stuck on the earth's surface
Feet planted on the sticky stuck
When the discovery of the body of water
Led me to clean out my bucket of shells
In this cave from which water is falling from Wilderness'
Fresh water springs from his mouth
Nothing tastes cleaner than that
Nov 22, 2017
Nov 22, 2017 at 1:31 AM UTC
They can get it without dying as a Jihadi,
But not from a Mullah they will get it,
They'll get it from science instead!
Feb 12, 2017
Feb 12, 2017 at 2:54 AM UTC