"The Gathering Storm"



Shifting, churning, swirling, .... the breeze comes spritely
from the slate colored billows of the thunderclouds.

  A gentle whisper at first,..... then building to a crescendo,
tickling the underbellies of  leaves..... and rolling them over.

Bending the supple tips of branches to a rythmn
unknown to any author of music.

A rythmn of nature following no rules.......
and knowing no bounds.


What reason shall it follow,....
when the flapping of a sparrows wings,

And brief stirring of the air by a single bird,
......a half continent away  

Shall have a cause and effect on what...
we feel pulsing against our exposed skin.

Is it not so with us,.... each one of us as a single sparrow,
flitting about and mingling with other creatures


Shall we not have an effect on that,....  that we touch
with our alterations of what is... and what was

We can only have hope,.. to manage the chaos
of the seeds that we sow... and the sprouts of our intellect.


Not knowing what will grow from our aspirations of changing that
that is .... to that,... that we dream it to be.

Shall we dare to become the God that we have worshipped .....
Shall we dare  become the ... Sheperd's of the universe.

Perhaps, !! ..... but we must lay down the rules and know the bounds.


Let us not forget,..... we are but caretakers
for the creations of a greater spirit.


"The Gathering Storm"

Written By Dennis Gilchrist

1) Gasoline

“He had punched a mirror. We found him on the floor, sifting through the shards of his broken reflection to find the piece that nobody liked. He cut his hand in the process and we asked him to stop bleeding. He had always been difficult. We wrapped him in gauze, cut a hole out for his lips, and told him to smile.”



As a child my glasses were foggy. The sleeve of my sweater was always wet and my cheeks were flushed. In contrast everyone else seemed to have dry clothes and fair eyesight. I stuck out like a bad joke with no punchline. I was that feeling you get when you try to jam the wrong shape through one of those Fisher-Price toys-- it doesn't fit but you force it anyway. My mother left my sister and I when we were five years old, and my dad turned to the bottle. We lived in a small town. Early in school I was the slightly effeminate social-butterfly who only mingled with girls. I was at that age where behavior is instinctual and influenced by your parents-- so I was afraid. During gym class I would hide in the bathroom and cry once a teacher had found me. The boys would observe.“One of these things is not like the other.” In time I would learn to fit in, however, you can only hide things so well when you're young before they start to show. The boys would react...





2) The Match





“When you hold a knife to someones throat, make sure you use enough pressure to affirm your conviction, but not so much as to actually follow through. The trick is to only appear ruthless, as to be perceived as weak makes you a victim-- and victims get bullied.”



By my junior year of high-school I had been transferred in and out of five different schools. I was accustomed to the fact that by removing me from the equation no institution had to confront their homophobic underbellies. Years passed and I had been berated, jumped, or otherwise chased out of every school I attended. After awhile, any threatening gesture one could conjure in my direction was met with dead eyes. From the treachery that once burned me I had become my own inferno of cruelty and tricks. I was the bully-- the worst kind. I was astounded how responsive the world became to my needs once my tears turned into clenched fists. Of course, I was still the effeminate social-butterfly-- but I had clipped his wings. I learned that there is a bridge between self-expression and societal acceptance, and the raging current that divides it is ignorance. That the appearance of things are so often held in higher regard than their content. That the value of a person is measured in material and a body count. I took these lessons and manifested an image. The most disturbing part about my transformation is that I assimilated everything I despised-- and it made me grossly popular. I got myself into a lot of trouble over the years that would follow, but as I got older, I stopped getting arrested as often. A few adults had regularly guided me from harm, and by some chance and a lot of luck-- there had been just enough good influence in my life. I was stopped from being the criminal I was bent on becoming.



3) Ashes



“There are two types of dogs in the world-- laps and strays. One sleeks around in the rain wondering where his next meal is coming from in exchange for his authenticity. The other is kept on a very short leash for a bone a day. I ask myself, which dog am I?”  



One's youth doesn't really come to an end, rather, there comes a time when you're expected to leave it behind. In my age I think about this. Much like high-school, in adulthood we're expected to maintain some sort of image, fit in to the confines of society, and blend in. The same herd-mentality which drove me to deny my authenticity the first time, is once again asking me to sacrifice my truths. We have changed the scenery but not the situation. The world is a wasteland for the individual. It will leave you cut, bruised and isolated. But when you finally come across someone or someplace who has fought your fight, and accepts you for all that you are, it will have been worth it in the end. And the pathetic wings of that damaged butterfly still beat inside of me, struggling to escape, reminding me to never abandon that which we're being conditioned to forget.

-z0

~For Eleanor~

<•>
don't
believe in fate or luck,
never won no lottery,
even the next word of
every poem word, product of hard earned
stolen lust affairs

me desiring,
of acquiring
the infamy
of saying it & making you believe it,
all new (ha!)
while reusing worn-out words,
stolen from unknown predecessors,
lovers and prophets

but then, read you,
a-believing now that only princesses
may have the magic powers to do,
to sense, the incongruence,
of the most ordinary lives,
the ways we-hide-in-our-underbellies,
the faces of our elven selves,
that we are desperate to see anew,
without the blemishing scars of experience
writing it morning fresh from dream filled sleep

so my sinner summer sun dying requests
you to be reminded:
even a prince, only has just so many
golden opportunities,
so quit stalling,
shoot out your next from your
handgun mind

yup, no luck, good fate, for me
held in abeyance for
the next first date, maybe

as I write  
Katy Perry
is ear-worming in my head,
ignite the light!

do you see us
awaiting in the shadows
for the definition of your words?

<•>


^divergent communication:
pattern in which the sender gives conflicting messages on verbal and nonverbal levels and the listener does not know which message to accept.

read https://hellopoetry.com/eleanor-prince/

.
our noses huffing   our eyes flirting out
             vetting the loose night air
a display of yearning   we did a grand deed

a mammal slain at our heart
   and we are the wrecking children  
we killed ourselves a deer
   ( no   small   thing )

flashlights propped in nooks                                                          
open the prey for dressing    we decorated a tree with the task
                                                  slings of intestinal tubing

open prey for dressing            
                 vocal prayer for the ****

praise the attributes that we ended            
                             the characteristics we assigned it
live meat in perish   organs   adding moist hot breath
                                                 to a waking cold night

after our butcher act                                                
after the parcels and beast are stowed                        
amongst the trees   we take off as phantoms in touch                
'to ourselves be sacrifice and yet return'   is somehow the plan

winds pick up                                            
                            and cold rain drives sideways
leaves of the bushes                              
                  flashing fish silver underbellies
a fleshing thrill combing the trees
an urgent spirited excitement

back at daybreak                                                        
                             we skin off our leather grip slippers
remove our party plate masks                                      
and  in the irrigated mourning grass          
              wipe our feet                               
wash away our tread and our threat

Sep 15 10:45am
Silver Beach, Peconic  Bay, Shelter Island

it is the day of the twixt and tween,
64°, stolid breeze on a bright sunshiny day,
but no question, we are well ensconced in
**** season, overlooking the shadowy, dry, speckled
blotchy, thirsty grass, and an empty bay, sails put aside

it’s a normal/semi-normal moment,
simultaneously secular and heaven blessed,
the stimuli of the quietude is the outlier,
it’s quantitude is overwhelming, it’s amplitude,
a wave of farewell humbled hushed rumblings of wind and
the drip of dropping leaves that fails to puncture
the total absence of noises, human et. al.

shirt off, chest wet & warmed, a light jacket,
my wrapper from the firm chill,
an undeniable temperate moment,
for this is an interlude day,
a goodbye and hello
shucked/unshucked poem,
the only semi-frisky item on the menu

even the animal kingdom respectful,
recognizing the sorrowful solitude
of this single intruder, so no cawing, honking,
even rabbits quietly chewing, their senses understand
this is a  remorseful write on a beauteous 1/365,
an adieu + au revoir script to
this island

but then the sign!

between Silver Beach and Noyac,
three heads a-bobbing,
white throats and white underbellies upright,
too far away to be heard,
but I swear I hear the purposeful porpoises saying:

“Adieu! Adieu!
until we see you and yours
once more,
for many more,
till then,
we await our mutual sheltering together,
in our shared waters”

<>

our summer palace,
where the sum of each newborn morn,
begins a life extending day, offsetting the aging of cells,
and softee smiles of children are botox injections,
directed to the soul’s lining,
an antigen antidote
to the toll time’s antibodies extract,
time units recorded and kept hid in the
the surround sound
of a special silence,
the sounds of rays twinkling
upon the waves,
reminders to everyone
that we are merely
betwixt and between
a plentiful heaven today
and a
plentiful heaven tomorrow