Keys to the kingdom
Rusting on the chain
Unsolicited advice
Unrelenting pain

A million monkeys typing tails
Written but unread
Until they chance upon the one
That means just what it said

Abstract art and abstract alms
Turning stone to bread
Peonies piercing palms
Until the flowers bled

Bled upon the canvas white
Smeared red with his blood
Santa Claus looked such a fright
Caught eating Daddy’s food

Beauty lies in in between
Inside a cavern dark
Truth is beauty oft unseen
A dog without a bark

Rhyming couplets copulate
Keeping perfect thyme
Synchronously syncopate
Commit the perfect crime

In the dark the eyes best see
When looking indirect
Poems write their poetry
When poets don’t reflect

Let hands loose upon the keys
Like ants upon the hill
Let loose fingers lose your mind
To write some swine loved swill

Who knows what the world may think
Of this unfettered phrase
You may be the missing link
To some new-fangled faze
Of something some call poetry
In its declining days

Stay in one place
How long? - Long enough

Long enough to see what others miss
To notice all the little things
The bug beneath your feet
The movement of the sun

Long enough for the birds to lose their fear
And come back to the food

Long enough for the house to become home
For the shrubbery to fill the voids
To no longer look like it did
When you picked it off the shelf at the garden center
Long enough for the vines to climb
Around the door and up the windowsill

Long enough for the marks and scratches
And dents to begin to appear
Like the rising row of horizontal pencil marks
Inside the pantry door

Long enough to learn where things belong
And where they don’t
To know that you can reach for them
On the darkest night
And trust they will be there

Long enough to know you’ve chosen well
That the things she did that bothered you
Have now become your treasures
That all those thoughts that someone
Might be better in some way
Have not stood the test of time
That perfection is a sterile land
Where nothing truly grows
That soulful smiles and honest eyes
Are what matter most

All white beneath, all blue above
All crystal in between
Where blackened spires reach ever higher
Entombed in frozen tears
Holding tight with all its might
Ice clasps every limb

Too soon the sun shows his fierce face
Now each tree flames afire
A narcissus and Icarus
Their beauty brighter, higher!
But beauty’s price is sacrifice
Tis come the judgement hour

The fairy world the storm unfurled
Now meets its moist demise
A southern breeze stirs tops of trees
Stand still - you’ll hear the cries
Losing their cold they lose their hold
Letting loose with sighs

Their tinkling sound heard all around
Sharp shards of broken glass
Each limb and branch an avalanche
To forest floor below
Comes crashing down from oaken crown
To kiss the melting snow

No wonder we chose spring for Easter
All nature joins in resurrection
Today, I found blood on a feather

The reckoning keeps coming faster
Invention killing all connection
Dead bees among the heather

Life and death and in between
A crazy quilt of paradox
Shall we be ****** or saved?

What in heaven does it mean?
Was Jesus crazy like a fox?
Is joy doubled, sorrow halved?

Not knowing gives me chills
Two calves playing tag
Romp over verdant hills

You can live three weeks without food
Three days without water
Three minutes without oxygen

Which death takes longer?
There is a simple test
Hold your breath.

Go slow, like the old dog
Lying at your feet
Sitting on high bluff’s edge
Perusing all the lake

Chase not God with words or thoughts
If you do she’ll run away
Like fairy queens and forest nymphs
Fearful of your brash approach

Be the patient lover
No tearing loose the blouse
To satiate your ****** urge
So never feeling hers

Sit stock still on the red oak
A hundred plus years old
That lies now like the old dog
Toppled by the storm

Listen like he listens
Look longly, like he looks
Taking time to take all in
Things never learned in books

Don’t say a word to the old dog
And he won’t say a word to you
Sense the peace in his silence
Look long into his eyes

Follow his example
Trust he knows the way
Words are the Devil’s workshop
The old dog knows it well

After a while you’ll thank him
When your boredom turns to grace
When you quit thinking anything
And thus see God face to face

Early morning brought her
Sunlight from the water
Footlights for the forest
Highlights on every leaf

Hours pass before us
Quieting birdsong chorus
Stealing dew from flowers
My mid morning Grief