"transitory" poems
Day-colored wine,
night-colored wine,
wine with purple feet
or wine with topaz blood,
wine,
starry child
of earth,
wine, smooth
as a golden sword,
soft
as lascivious velvet,
wine, spiral-seashelled
and full of wonder,
amorous,
marine;
never has one goblet contained you,
one song, one man,
you are choral, gregarious,
at the least, you must be shared.
At times
you feed on mortal
memories;
your wave carries us
from tomb to tomb,
stonecutter of icy sepulchers,
and we weep
transitory tears;
your
glorious
spring dress
is different,
blood rises through the shoots,
wind incites the day,
nothing is left
of your immutable soul.
Wine
stirs the spring, happiness
bursts through the earth like a plant,
walls crumble,
and rocky cliffs,
chasms close,
as song is born.
A jug of wine, and thou beside me
in the wilderness,
sang the ancient poet.
Let the wine pitcher
add to the kiss of love its own.
My darling, suddenly
the line of your hip
becomes the brimming curve
of the wine goblet,
your breast is the grape cluster,
your ******* are the grapes,
the gleam of spirits lights your hair,
and your navel is a chaste seal
stamped on the vessel of your belly,
your love an inexhaustible
cascade of wine,
light that illuminates my senses,
the earthly splendor of life.
But you are more than love,
the fiery kiss,
the heat of fire,
more than the wine of life;
you are
the community of man,
translucency,
chorus of discipline,
abundance of flowers.
I like on the table,
when we're speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.
Drink it,
and remember in every
drop of gold,
in every topaz glass,
in every purple ladle,
that autumn labored
to fill the vessel with wine;
and in the ritual of his office,
let the simple man remember
to think of the soil and of his duty,
to propagate the canticle of the wine.
27.2k
Loosing is not an option
its a choice
sucess is not permanent
it is a roller coaster ride
goes up and down
slide left and right
at the peak or at the bottom
sometimes high or sometime it clatters
someone cries at the end ,
someone got it a lot better
aftermath,they got wobbly legs
can't stand straight
or enjoys it before it ends.
thrill excites but never resides
fun is transitory but still entertaining
hardwork is persistant and challenging
Tears become companion in the journey
happy or sad eyes let them flow
choose as per your desire
because there is no turning back
never saw turns that left behind
chasing the speed
to overcome the distance readily
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 10:48 AM UTC
Briskly walking with his head *****
Money and treasure, he aims to get
He is in a stampede, chasing wealth
Acute shortage of ‘humility and gratitude’
Compels him to slaughter a multitude
The desire for more than enough
It has crystallized and made his heart tough
Oblivious about ‘humility and gratitude’
Man agrees to squash the destitute
Unaware, that he may face the same fate
Even then he piles up his plate
When would he be humble and grateful?
For the things which make his life blissful…
Even while swallowing all that is unlawful
He persistently denies being shameful
His conscience reminds him of ‘humility and gratitude’
But he refuses to change his haughty attitude
Let me remind you that life is temporary
Nothing in this world remains stationary
Just like dust your stay is transitory
These two traits, ‘humility and gratitude’
Can help you to acquire beatitude
Don’t forget your final abode
Where good deeds won’t be sold
Remember, the fables of the brave and the bold
All of them possessed ‘humility and gratitude’
From all this, you may conclude
It is the purity of our intentions
What Creator expects from his creation
Everything else is mere illusion
Being a human, demands ‘humility and gratitude’
Oct 24, 2010
Oct 24, 2010 at 7:27 AM UTC
is like no other early morning, man reborn, in the delivery
room of sky blue, the offsetting water deeper bluish hue,
the trim-all-around of the mixed salad greens of the staff's
scrubs as they usher in unity, with no imp-unity, the risks,
while the supervisory sky, disperses cumulus clouds in
peppercorn patterns of white chains, or big wide solitary
brushstrokes on a a ****** canvas, gettin' the feel in the
palm of the heft of brush, the viscosity of the paint, the day's
palette reflecting available colors in order to create a uni~cued
original of what has been painted an uncountable times before,
and before…
tho short weighted, was the sleep of the prior night's restful,
he awakes to the early morning light, the sounds of early
island rouse him, even, arouse him, for the August chill
foretells of the early onset of memory loss of the peculiarities
of this summered simmering, human warming and baking
and natural braking of the slowing of the heart rate, to better
accommodate, nature's hints and hidden reminiscences
of the true purpose of the summer's intervention upon our
collective and unique bottling, our individualized containers,
un~lidded, uncovered, eager for the fuel of sunrays replenish-
ing the length of our lives by the elixir of the summer
it is a chill 63 Fahrenheit at this time of day as we crossover
to the nigh day, from the cooling air conditions of dark,
the occasional helicopter intrudes upon the morning's calm,
the water placid, the geese honking regarding my watchful
rewarding presence, a slew, a bevy, of female vocalists, to
ease this transitory performance unfolding, and though one
feels the existential of his solitary singularity, as he thinks,
nay believes, he is the only one in attendance at this ritualized
emergence, he takes in the cool of, the heat of, the admixture
of both, the clashing integers of each, and he, fully invigorated,
goes silent, for once more, he has uncovered new combinations of
old words to accept and describe a new day's creation, miracle of miraculous, defying the odds of this ventures's success, his own continuance on this sheltered but open all around island implanted tween two tines of land, as if all the surroundings were created just to protect this, wholly holy place…
7:00am
Silver Beach
Shelter Island
Aug 19 2025
Aug 19, 2025
Aug 19, 2025 at 8:00 AM UTC
This life does not taste alive
Like a body without an owner
Pain dances over my bitter life
Does life feel like death?
You, the only gift in my life
We met at the wrong time
However, it didn't matter
Time is transitory
We are both immortal
The Universe seems to be challenging us
Are you sure we can change destiny in the end?
Tonight
I want to sleep in your eyes
Hope the sun doesn't show itself.
At least, until I close my eyes.
Mar 13, 2021
Mar 13, 2021 at 10:46 PM UTC
Cut through the imaginary chains
Get a grip on the life’s reins
The journey maybe tough
Diamonds are polished by the rough
Journeying through the dark
Frictions may cause temporary spark
Running frantically across difficult territory
The pain and agony is just transitory
Life is there to celebrate
When you are confident and don’t speculate
Dec 14, 2014
Dec 14, 2014 at 8:40 AM UTC
the child of the child of my woman,
cries in the night,
rooming next door,
down the hall
and
he is
all children that cry in the night,
but he is
more mine
by right of quantity
numerous are the kisses lavished,
this biannual visit upon,
his four year old
oversized head,
(so full of 'bains')
his undersized,
protuberanced belly body,
a combo making him
no longer baby,
nor a grownup,
both states,
he denies accurately,
maturely in a wobbly voice
of utter certainty,
but lacking the adjectives
of what lies between,
he debates his state thoughtfully,
until distracted by other
more pressing matters of state
he is boy, little but vociferous,
quiet, pensive, his head a weapon
of...confusion and certainty that
being four years old,
he must perforce be
permanently
in skeptical awe of the world
this is the best position ever,
he has ascertained,
to filter and behold anything,
whatever newness arrives,
which is constant,
streaming and unending
until new is
fully digested, analyzed, and classified,
as if he were
a zoologist in
a wild and untamed land
only certain of what he knows
with perfect certainty,
he consults with me still,
"you kidding?"
such a sophisticated analytic interrogatory,
wise in the ways of grownups,
who, prone to deceive gleefully
his very
suspecting mind,
so much so,
they must be challenged and
rebuffed all too frequently
he cries in the night,
normal tears of discomfort,
physical or mental,
I cannot tell,
for his father
his parental hearing
more practiced, refined,
has preceded me,
such,
as it should be,
and I am dispatched back
to my 3:00am bed,
left only to ink
contemplative ruminations
on the state and nation
of being four...
and sixty,
and still uncertain, even more
than the little boy
of wizened age of annualized four,
the child of the child of my woman,
on
what is real, what is kidding,
in a quest unending
to better ascertain,
the state of my own being
and the transitory nature of
everything
all of what is thought certain,
falls aside,
under the withering,
unwavering,
critique of
"you kidding?"
and in this we are
more kin
than if our blood was
physically shared
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 4:24 AM UTC
Budding Rose
building pressure,
pursed and ready,
meeting the threshold
with preparatory
anticipation;
quivering.
Blooming Rose
opening with elegance,
breaking from tight enclosure.
a fragrant, companionate aroma,
inviting, an unfoldment,
spreads of flourish;
exquisite grace.
Dying Rose
with humbleness
in bowing stem.
letting go,
petal by petal.
richer reds,
darkening,
decease.
Cyclic Rose
coming, breaking
open and shedding;
a transitory
ephemeral beauty.
teaching the natural
art of being;
in bud
b l o o m
& death.
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014 at 4:26 PM UTC
I am worth being valued for existing
Not only in the moments
That I become relevant, necessary, or useful
For lustful, celebratory or inspirational insanity
I am not a lollipop or an exotic destination
Stop exploring me *************
Because you salivate over this Hispaniola
Beautiful island desecrated and decimated
How many beautiful spirits will you make savages
How many pure rivers will you **** blood on
How many conquests will you claim a stake in
How much balance will you disturb and subjugate
to the trauma of your transitory exploration
There's no impunity for conquerors
Who taste, plunder, disguise disapproval in their apologies and move on
There's no impunity for conquerors
Who pick and choose who's worth
Of validation, when, & how
There's no impunity for conquerors
Who play with men and women
Hierarchize their prey
But fail to acknowledge
Their man-child whitewashed
Hidden agendas & rigged market values
Conquerors haunted by the trauma they've caused
Will not be absolved by the revolution
Neither will the revolution be the breast
That heals conquers who are traumatized
By the realization of their own fuckery
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 5:29 AM UTC
Awake to a slowly beating drum
morning meditation drifting up the hill
in the garden, tiny birds add sweet highs
tuneless ravens, the bass undertone
trees whisper ancient lyrics
on the passing breeze.
We stroll the Path of Philosophy
through massive wooden gates
into carefully sculpted gardens
exploring the endless number
of temples dotting Kyoto
each more lovely than the last.
Quiet Nanzen-Ji
is where I feel the most
following worship worn
steps to a cave-shrine
heady with wet
and incense
we are purified
by waterfall spray
before returning
the way we came
voices hushed
buoyed by eternity’s hand.
The hotel lobby is filled
with crimson and saffron
glistening heads and broad smiles
from monks gathered there
we bow to each other and are one
may it never be forgotten
revelers arrive by busload
for hanami, cherry blossom viewing
beneath a revered tree
decked out in pink splendor
lit from below to radiate
surreal, internal light
we sample Kobe yakitori
soba and corn
grilled over open flame
as we flow
through the smiling
celebratory crowd
we savor
what is transitory
as sparks
and blossoms whirl
settling on
our hair and skin.
Jan 13, 2016
Jan 13, 2016 at 12:15 PM UTC
So still she lies,
Sleeping.
A cold room
Cold thoughts.
Under cover of cotton and linen.
A cold lonely wind
Cries outside
Longing to find solace
In the warmth of our home
But finding only that it devourers
By its own devices
What it so desperately desires.
Pain in my brow
Forged with hers.
Sharing breaks
Up the pain--
Comfort of depression's transitory end.
Why do you hurt the ones you love
When you want only peace?!
A lover of the land
Must plough the earth for yield
Break the ground in fury
To prepare it for seed.
This pain awaits our company
Like a bottle to a drunkard
Or a needle to a ******
Comfort is pain
Pain is comfort
In this violent serenity
As the calm peaceful sea
Can in one moment
Turn into a tumultuous gale.
Is love for the using?!
Can a person justify
Putting lines of age on the face
And gray hairs on the head
Of the one they love?!
So many carry this burden.
Love shares common ground--
Seasons for ploughing and planting;
And harvest,
The season of closure.
So still she lies
Beside me.
A cold room
Warmer thoughts.
Under cover of cotton and linen.
Under cover of compassion
And understanding.
Jan 23, 2017
Jan 23, 2017 at 12:23 AM UTC
There is a time in a person's life when that internal clock will ring
when a higher force will wake us from our slumber with a sting
having been given individual trials, we hope we'll do our best
but we are insensitive, overcome with laziness, a desire for rest
The little things in life, how so often we take them for granted
quickly losing touch with reality, and becoming disenchanted
thinking we can forge relationships, with the blinking of an eye
failing to feel the hurt we cause others, with our final good-bye
We, as human beings, must first come to acknowledge the truth
the problems we all hide in our closet, they started in our youth
but the error of our thinking, is clear and can only be addressed
when we're willing to accept the fact, that this life is only a test
Attempts at self denial are truly futile, because you remain unchanged
accomplishing nothing, only from yourself will you become estranged
an endless light of healing must be released, to that location unknown
thereby removing that which blocks our thinking, our heart of stone
Your mind is your cage, only if you desire, you can set yourself free
don't believe in the lies you're told, you can be what you want to be
if you never give up, you alone will be able to preserve the true way
by choosing your destiny, no one else will, because this is your day
Liberate yourself from the enslavement, transitory passions of the day
either stand up to the pressures, or you'll just find yourself blown away
you must trust your heart as it knows the truth, and it alone will succeed
choosing the only real path, that path from where the light shall proceed
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 4:21 PM UTC
“and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
Walt Whitman
<>
having recently been on standby for a permanent-entry residency visa
to over & just beyond death’s door, Walt’s prescient prescription strikes my broken breastbone even harder much, than the persistent
periodic pains confirming the breaking and the healing
of this man’s mending of the human centric poetic *****
for this warped heart mine, now rejoicingly rejiggered with some threads and wires to deliver a new but fresh bloodied wisdom,
begs me, eggs me to torrent word streams, but Whitman’s wisdom cautions a new slowness, the wisdom of mortality’s hot breath urges careful consideration of every letter that my second chance, consignment shop flesh, eagerly embraces, to both prescribe and proscribe inside-insights tween the deafening sounds of eyelashes beating synchronized to the revived heart rates rapid renewal and
last second-chances….
torn tween minute torso sensations and the running silence of
a new battery’s internal rapid intervals, the silent timing gaps tween beats leaves-just-enough-space to ask over and over again,
from whence will come my richest fluency? (1)
at 300am, I lay carefully caressing and chewing well each transitory
thought, absent the former energetic ability to just spill,
though highly desired,
now requires, like me,
steady re-piecing together
the steady drumbeat of now-nearer-my-god-than-thee Titanic reflections
demands a slowing rapidity
this I thought before and now ken, even and ever better, that our primary endeavor shall always be the giving, the disbursement of the act of love…for therein lies the healing of each, and wet eyes,
make necessarily concluding this poem about nothing and everything
and I comprehend Walt’s dictum:
my very flesh is a poem,
every sensation a lyric,
every breath taken and returned to the atmosphere
so unconsciously
are my oldest
and newest
3:00 AM poetry companions
Aug 18, 2023
Aug 18, 2023 at 4:41 PM UTC
***A Woman's Reflection on Her Reflection (Valence and Value)
one poem, written by two authors***
~~~
**Ever the analyst,
A mirror functions as surface to
Parse the fleeting constant
Of youth's beauty.
From genetic gift
Of symmetry and bone,
To technological tampering,
Until the equation is solved,
As experience and character
Models and maps the result.
The answer, a reflection,
Of individual valence and value**
(written by S.D., a woman)
~~~
(written by N.L., a man)
unbidden and unannounced, a
"not fully formed poem,
but a simple reflection"
inbound missile arrives inbox,
armed with silent power,
the lethality of the
Holy Unexpected
the man reflects
on her mirror-on-the-wall's
fulsome reply,
parsing the words of a
woman's reflection,
while gazing on her own
every human's momentary glass notation,
but an instance of summation,
a human poem, whose editing,
unceasing
a comma here,
a period inserted,
an eye shadowed, an eyebrow tweezed,
a eye dark circle line added,
to tree-mark time's authorship
all these
but a person's
excerpted extraction,
notarized,
then auto-erased and revised,
as out of date,
instantaneously compromised
but,
***it is upon the conceptual,
valence and value,
more that the man reflects perpetual,
less on transitory morphing changes of
exterior mortality
while overlooking her
glassine realization from behind,
he concludes:
every reflection,
no matter how oft the snapshot,
the unfleeting constancy
of the combining of the
princes of principles,
valence and value
that he witnesses,
in the calming pool
of her eyes,
(those borrowed windows into her soul's well,)
so well reflect
her unchanging greater finery,
her character
this reflection,
metamorphosis transformed.
into a planetary permanency poem,
high placed in his the firmament
of their conjoined sky***
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 8:54 PM UTC
So what of love,
Hearts burning fire,
Impaled on the horns of pain and desire,
A villain made true; honest man to a liar
In wretched quest for an abstract that’s higher
And if, perchance, they should vanquish their need,
Will he or she to true love concede
Or never quite sure of heart’s fine intention
Smother such dreams with stifling convention
Then, dastardly torn, twixt right and true
Sully their soul with transitory muse
In fear of the power that thunders within
And a promise once made, to never give in
For the Poet’s dilemma in this miraculous life
Is that when blessed with love, ‘tis oft coupled with strife.
Sep 16, 2011
Sep 16, 2011 at 5:06 PM UTC
In my world there is a gem...
On which there are two
predominant facets.
It has never been just me,
or just you...
It is us...
Marooned on a little cast off islet.
If I could take just one sip
from the fount of transitory courage,
I'd take the leap
into waters deep.
So I could pave the route
for our safe passage.
To freedom and love...
Without restrictions or restraint.
If only we could...
We'd harness from the infinite palette above
and with it,
boundless magic
we would paint.
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 12:45 PM UTC
The headphones go in. Sore Thumb begins.
I take a deep breath and get out of my car.
The guitar gently begins a pleasant melody
as my feet slide along the pavement.
A short walk, in both distance and time
but everything was still.
Eternity in a moment.
The drums join the guitar in perfect, unexpected cooperation,
my heartbeat and smile slightly augmented.
This is what we live for.
Sometimes we experience those moments that are without flaw,
so transitory yet frozen I nearly cry.
The skeletons of leaves scrape along the sidewalk.
A cold breeze sneaks under my sweater
giving me a chill that reminds me of the millions of nerves throughout my body.
I am alive, I am dead. I am all, I am none.
The vocals echo from a distant hallway.
Reminiscent, nostalgic, sentimental come to mind.
Rather than hear the soundtrack of my environment I imagine.
The vocals cut out and the song bursts into a colorful symphony.
With it bursts the deepest center of myself.
I arrive, my walk has come to an end
but I'll never forget that walk.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 10:05 AM UTC
Under a stagnant sky,
Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom,
The River, jaded and forlorn,
Welters and wanders wearily--wretchedly--on;
Yet in and out among the ribs
Of the old skeleton bridge, as in the piles
Of some dead lake-built city, full of skulls,
Worm-worn, rat-riddled, mouldy with memories,
Lingers to babble to a broken tune
(Once, O, the unvoiced music of my heart!)
So melancholy a soliloquy
It sounds as it might tell
The secret of the unending grief-in-grain,
The terror of Time and Change and Death,
That wastes this floating, transitory world.
What of the incantation
That forced the huddled shapes on yonder shore
To take and wear the night
Like a material majesty?
That touched the shafts of wavering fire
About this miserable welter and wash--
(River, O River of Journeys, River of Dreams!)--
Into long, shining signals from the panes
Of an enchanted pleasure-house,
Where life and life might live life lost in life
For ever and evermore?
O Death! O Change! O Time!
Without you, O, the insuperable eyes
Of these poor Might-Have-Beens,
These fatuous, ineffectual Yesterdays!
2.3k
Anchor
Blindly walk away carelessly forming a separate destiny
What heart hasn’t been broken from loss?
Nothing but these remain a certainty
Transitory lives and times
This tension ever exists
Security rock solid always will be buffeted by change
Fate continuously at odds with calm calculated reason always set to resist
Dark doubts the heart will pierce
Fear puts able thoughts in chains
The mind enslaved death enshrined
Who hasn’t known this cruel master’s reign?
Held fast as by a strait jacket useless to fight
Heartless people consumed by deadness
In the midst of laughter lies a specter
Decency and safety shifts treachery always at readiness
Impossible innocence shocked blood covers the land
There is no freedom dealt by mortal man
This race and special gift angels sift
Divine pollination needed for character unchecked
Grace everywhere at once without a trace of its origin
The face noble the heart captured perfect gladness
The rock of offence removed
Stiff necked pillar of rebellion finally moved
Paths now sweet a life hid discreet
The waters calm the breeze a balm
Thoughts unbridled burning intense
Arrows of gold feathers of silver
Blessed be the nation who finds God to be their anchor
Jan 8, 2012
Jan 8, 2012 at 10:38 PM UTC
She is
the book falling open to November,
sweet hidden wickedness of rhododendron,
her mouth a tuberose, pale.
*******
She swells upon the eaves.
They touch at her thighs
to feel the texture of acrylics,
something frail, transitory,
beautiful.
She walks the beach in August,
sudden music out of nowhere,
houseflies and hypodermics,
the shadows that rustle
behind shower curtains.
Her need to be compelling is painful,
something purple and waxen,
a delicate blush.
Still, she writes the way
her body should look,
provocative, breathless,
stirring agony in its wake.
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 9:00 AM UTC
So many “road stories”
from the Odyssey, and Kerouac, to Augustine.
Each rich in emotion and spirit
most of the stories
have the hero hitched to a fellow traveler
to bathe the soul in word and mood
to throb with the music.
I have recurring dreams.
I’m in a hotel looking for an elevator
can’t find my floor or room
or can’t find my car downtown.
I wander streets, and lots.
Are there road stories hidden in these dreams?
Why do I trip, fall
stay misplaced and lost
find only
transitory
destinations?
May 9, 2022
May 9, 2022 at 10:55 PM UTC
I am here
Yet most times I'm not
Likened to a fleeting zephyr
Perchance may be caught
Beyond the bend, it's hard to see
Uncertain, unpredictable, unsure
There are chances however unlikely
To chart life's trot and canter
Awaiting the moment I would voraciously savour
The fullness of my being that's rare and transitory
Because almost always,
I'm drowning in doubt and clamour
With fevered breaths drawn more quickly
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 10:31 AM UTC
To cultivate in ev’ry noble mind
Habitual grace, and sentiments refin’d,
Thus while you strive to mend the human heart,
Thus while the heav’nly precepts you impart,
O may each ***** catch the sacred fire,
And youthful minds to Virtue’s throne aspire!
When God’s eternal ways you set in sight,
And Virtue shines in all her native light,
In vain would Vice her works in night conceal,
For Wisdom’s eye pervades the sable veil.
Artists may paint the sun’s effulgent rays,
But Amory’s pen the brighter God displays:
While his great works in Amory’s pages shine,
And while he proves his essence all divine,
The Atheist sure no more can boast aloud
Of chance, or nature, and exclude the God;
As if the clay without the potter’s aid
Should rise in various forms, and shapes self-made,
Or worlds above with orb o’er orb profound
Self-mov’d could run the everlasting round.
It cannot be—unerring Wisdom guides
With eye propitious, and o’er all presides.
Still prosper, Amory! still may’st thou receive
The warmest blessings which a muse can give,
And when this transitory state is o’er,
When kingdoms fall, and fleeting Fame’s no more,
May Amory triumph in immortal fame,
A nobler title, and superior name!
1.9k
I never won a thing
not even a coconut
but
I did have fun
though I watched as the sun went down
with a frown on my face
transitory
waiting for the next story
the new day
more play
fun and games
catcalling names at the girls
little pearls on the beach.
Yesterday
cannot reach its hands out to me
but I can see it
hiding in the corner
banging on the drum
waiting for some more fun
cap guns and candy floss
deck chairs
no cares.
Tossing and turning in these dreams I am burning
underneath the bright sky
with a tear in my eye I awake
ache
and yesterday breaks open today.
I stay
in the fairground
when everyone's gone home
and the dream is long gone but the dreaming goes on
and the memories return where I burn on the beach
out of reach of today
in the Yes
of the yesterday
I remain.
May 11, 2013
May 11, 2013 at 2:41 AM UTC
The eagle searches, circling, senses strum like spider silk.
Sorrow’s scent slides up on a sea breeze.
A solitary slave spits sullenly into the spray.
Silently, suddenly, the sentinel streaks down.
Beak breaks skin, breaches bone, crimson blots the ocean’s foam.
Defenceless, relentless, the bird blurs in a barrage of blood.
Banished, betrayed, the ravaged titan sways -
between the rocks that form his cage.
His foe retreats; a closing caw as crooked claws cleave meat.
Head bowed in defeat, our hero strains as chains bind
hands and feet.
Enduring bonds cut deep and bleed him bittersweet.
Cast against the crags,
this castaway’s castigated cries call out
to no-one.
Chastised, he squints with hollow eyes
towards a lifetime of the bird’s reprise.
Furious. Fists flex,
thrashing against his fortress.
Face furrowed into a frown he flings forward
and for once finds his foot…
unfettered.
Bindings broken, his bonds bite terra firma,
as first a foot and then a hand finds favour.
Boundless, he bellows at the sky
as the flotsam of his freedom floats on by.
Reprieved. Aggrieved. He is restless in release.
An errant righteous line repeats.
Relentless in its beat, it rings out like raw steel on teeth.
A ricochet that disturbs his sleep
“Is this victory, or defeat?”
Racked by reminiscence,
his reality and responsibility remain.
Warped roots rammed down
with rock-filled boots.
Resistance seems obtuse against such reoccuring fruit.
Reluctant, resigned, he rattles out a sigh -
the last gasp of this transitory high.
Reaching for the rope and tack he re-binds the knots
that hold him back.
With one last glance towards the past
he hoists his soul upon the mast.
Ceaselessly.
Senselessly.
The
sentinel
streaks
down.
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 2:20 AM UTC