love runs deep
and true like the Isar

flowing as an
amorous stream

immersing lovers
in the surge of
golden currents

its thrilling
buoyancy
lifting the
beloved

reaching sanctuaries
on soft grassy banks

finding solace
in trickling eddies

sustaining the
most hungry
of hearts

Isar springs
from a far off
continental
pinnacle

tipping from the
mystic peaks of
mythical Valhallan
tables

royally set to feast
the unabashed love
of Tristan and Isolde

she
pours
as an
ambrosial
libation
brewed
by master
Brewmeisters

coursing through
the veins of all
Bavarians
she sweeps across
lush Alpine meadows
anointing the water
with nectarous
edelweiss fragrance
and budding sprigs
of mountain laurel

generous streams
gently cascade
down the Alp’s,
sloping through
picturesque
valleys,
sustaining the
blue on white
Maypoles of
busy hamlets
crafting the
things of life

the glacial melt
of Spring swells
the flows of
a rising Isar

bringing new things
from far off places
heralding arrivals
revealing epiphanies
washing the
deepest stains
carrying away
the unholy flotsam
of loved
starved souls

proclaiming fidelity
tributaries are joined
in a holy union

once submerged
hidden doubts
yearnings and
unrequited
longings
are banished
in a mornings
lifting mist
charting new
courses for
companionship

summer reveals
sparkling waters
winding its way
through beds
of polished stones

during the
easy season
the river offers
respite from
pressing heat

clear waters
invite bathers
to dip a toe,
wade deep or
fully submerge
oneself in pools
of rejuvenation

British Gardens
offer spectacle
of self affirmed
nudists and
surfers tacking
atop waves,
while spectators
marvel from
protected alcoves
yearning to
peel off
extraneous
layers of cloths
to experience
the joy of naked
freedom

during gay times
carefree summer
lovers intoxicated by
the sweet scent of
blooming tulip trees
rendezvous in
hidden glades

breathlessly
relishing the
intimate reveries
of seclusion
embracing
renewed
discoveries of
fathomless desire

along canals
laborers find
the recompence
of a well earned
day of rest

families lay blankets
to define the space
where circles of trust
are assembled,
where identity
is sculpted
and family folklore
is handed down,
entrusted to the  
guardianship of
a new generation

the boughs of
broad leaf trees
seat heralds
of songbirds,
gracefully shading
the resting with
a welcomed lullaby
while shielding loungers
from the remorseless
hum of a busy city

water and
love unite
forming a base
compound element
nurturing companionship
gleaned on the gentle ebbs
of a green river calling  
its estuaries to rejoin
its fluxing host

in Autumn
the foliage of
the glorious season
paints a Monet
masterpiece
a life of love
has wrought

dazzling
watercolor portraits
are splayed onto the
glass surface of her
magnificent face

revealing
the depth
and dimension
of loves full
pallet of life's
seasons
beheld
in living
color for all
to behold

enthralled we
marvel at the
wondrous
portraiture
nature
composed
urging us to wade
into the golden pools
baptized by the grace
of reconciliations from
the dislocations of
expired seasons

as the hard times of winter arrives
serrated edges of ice floes creep
across the snow laced stones
reminding us how jagged
seasons may be

the gray steel water challenges
the warmest hearts of love

but elegant bridges
crowned with
statuesque keystones
arch across the water
joining the river walkways

the knowing statuary
of a city's mythic guardians
are ever watchful
assuring the Isar’s flow
remains unimpeded
and uncorrupted

the beloved of
Munchen sleep well
during the harshest
Bavarian nights
knowing the Angel of Hope
gleams through the darkness
her fluttering wings
sounding surety
to the faithful

her protective pinions
sprinkle gold upon the frozen river
planting the hopeful seeds of spring
whispering reassurances that
love will never be extinguished

Music Selection:
Bette Midler, The Rose

Composed for the marriage
of Maxine and Glendon McCallum
Munchen
7/4/14

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”
(Henry V, by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE)

Morning into Mourning

<>

I speak it softly, for though battlefield is steeped in quietude
of the lively greenery, endless lawns of healing fields
surrounded by multitudinous shades of blue waters,
my eyes piercing , joining in
as sunrising separates the veil
dividing light from dark, new from prior,
a went-before and a
soon-to-be
and a familiar-what-to-be-hereafter,
but a skyed breech it is,
with sun ray stairs inviting my
upright ascension into this newness

Welcoming the exposure of my trembling, though it is not fear that causes my shaking, but the colored warmth barely warming, yet,
stoking, stroking the drape of chill
away, away! from my night-sealed pores

the majestic surfacing of the waters peinture impasto, with its roughened but genteel thick, dabs, dots, swirls, swishes belie the overall atmosphere of calm it conveys, and Shakespeare’s rallying cry of men rises to the mind forefront, for the bay is my battlefield,
the day’s new light the breeching of the sky’s
envelopment of our world, summons to rise and
step forward intimately into the tableau of morning

into the breech, into the unknown,
to lift one more poem from breast,
shed tears of welcome, and death fears banished,
a battle to the unknown from the foretold past,
and, but

you shout
no!
<>
tis a day like all others,
of rectitude sans gratitude
another quantity of known drudgery, another,
“Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup”

The breach is within me,
a splitting of the head,
laid flat out upon my desk,
writing down scrupulously
officiously,
the same figures inconsequentially,
letters deranged, daily merely rearranged,
prison vista,steel and glass appearing with
the same exactitude of every day ever prior,
the sun invisible, the unceasingly unchanging
dark deep of the shadowy of manmade canyons…

speak to us no more of views, vistas,
but the fistulae, the empty places
where interconnected dots and dash’s,
light and ombre blends of dark ochre  
gradations of bland de~gray~ding
are our time’s patchworks of familiarity,
cursed with annualized daily reciprocity,
a *** for a tat,
a woolen watch cap,
a  black Balaclava,
drawn over our heads
lest the drudgery be too readily apparent!

<>
mere mortal am I,
mortal wounded by our disparate
and desperate differing points
of view,
and we split ourselves in two,
hoping for a way forward of
reconciliations,
successful hostage negotiations,
pushing these contradictions,
back inside my heads,
until confronted
once again,
and find new words coming,
to bind me of the divisions between
or even,
to blind
me to the gaps between
my left and right
brain.

for I am both men,
one and the same,
forever
battling

until the morrow, then…