a descent
1000 feet down
to pristine silence
a Silence
on surface unknown..
guide speaks there of
miners and animals
struggles to eke
in candlelight
daily bread from
earth's stubborn veins..
encasements:
gold in rocks
ounces in tons
suffering and toil
in that Silence...

Our moments collect in concentric rings about the nexus
Of a first embrace, adorned with Autumnal colors and scents -
We lovers blend, cupped gently below the stir of flecks and dapple.
Each leaf high up quivers in the bouquets and knows when to let go,
Fly and fall to earth.

Whispers from a rustling canopy climb down the bark encasements
Of these tall and somnolent trees, thirsty leaves that clatter and kiss,
Wink awake – brilliant – hold our gaze and suspend our hearts.
In a pirouette amidst the amity of recollection and premonition -
We shimmer in an iridescence of saffron on copper – remember this.

Moments light up, each one, for just an instant, the last of our lives;
Each conveniently the beginning of forever and forever smiles at us.
Rippling across the cycles of solstice and equinox, we radiate –
A nostalgic procession toward unmade memories, like tree rings.
We fly and fall in love.

This most beautiful morning
Stirs my heart

A lone black horse
Stands motionless
In a frost encrusted field
Waiting for the sun
To warm his body

The grasses and trees
Ice covered
Are waiting too

They are waiting
For the orange sun
To revive them
To free them
Of their crystalline encasements

My frozen heart
Is melting
At the beauty
Of Autumn

Brown, orange, red, straw

Everything stands still
On this early Saturday morning
Waiting for the thaw

Reminding us all
That we are small

And telling me
To offer my prayers

To the magnificent sun

“All the great sadnesses, great temptations,
and great mistakes are almost always
the result of loneliness.”
-- José Saramago, Margaret Jull Costa

In the end we all become graves,
our differences united by the same
neglect of weeds and immense
necropolis whose swathed residents
observe from quiet encasements.

Beyond our mounds will spread
giant limbs of balboa, tapping
like trapped hangers behind closet
doors casting macabre shadows
across plastic flowers and dirt.

Visitors and memories are decimated
by time until all that remains
is a hovel of chiseled stone.
History becomes an illusion
of mystery, like that black dog,

there -- just beyond Aiken's bench,
sniffing out with such diligence you
would swear it was seeking the birth
certificate of God, until it ***** its leg
and ****** on the concrete instead.

~

What did I ever do
to deserve a world where
avocados are underripe while they're overripe,
pens cede before their ink is spent,
rivers run dry, aquifers deplete?
What choice do I have
but to opt out of the technocratic misery,
overlorded by the Slither Circle,
to make my sways of the sun replete?

My country has a Military Complex
that fought wars over bananas.
My country prints Monsters on Money,
a desecrated spell to spill nature's blood
and use it in every commodity:
the ink, the encasements, the coatings,
the stains, the sealants, the wrappers,
even the food and medicine.

What did I do?
I ate. I wrote. I used.

I have dived
Into the depths of my life
And found discontentment there

The fatigue of driven efforts
Weighs on my dizzy head
Like sandbags

And I can only hope to find a new route
To re-surface

The fragility
Of this life
Reverberates around my skull

And I carry out my motions
Of pure survival

In the end
I have to open
And let go
Of all former experiences

For I have challenged head on
My very fragility and brittleness

My glass encasements shimmer
And crackle as I strive to hold
My head aloft
And locate my mission

My mission
Not the one
Others would choose for me

I am like a wax man
Whose heart burns brightly with flame
But whose body wilts
Beneath the strain

Tomorrow sometimes looms
Sometimes beckons

But the adventure
Is
A wonder

Sunkissed girls on the strand
Pastel-clad chirp-chirping; little birds
Cigarette smoldering in hand
From the watcher, below-deck
They adorn the walls of his compartment
In tabloid form.

Tying off the garbage bags,
Plastic encasements framing
Neutral-tone collages of consumption,
Needless consumption. Frivolity. Waste.
Oh, the **** that these tourists throw away.

Towards winter the cheering, the chatter,
The hollering - all dying down as the
Shifting economies of hot light convey
The end of one cycle. Cease all motion
Regathering strength to start all over,
Come back burning brighter, compelling
Renewed faith.

For now, it seems, this may last forever
Gathering up the trash for disposal
Keeping little trinkets as reminders,
Taping to the walls with favorite posters
Closing down, a sign slung up:
Closed for Winter.
Come whatever
May

The bindings.
The encasements.
Tendons twisting
The tight slipknots
As we squirm
And entrap us all
In miniscule minds
Minuscule thoughts
Until the sickle
sets us free.