Soul Deserted

                                                 (Image from: Mobileadvertisingwatch.com)

It was the roots
and the flowers
It was the leaves
and the branches

Everything was considered
proved wanting and wanted
It was love
It was hate
It was joy
It was late

A quarter of a century's
worth of waiting
not knowing it was all
that was needed

The seasons don't matter
We only knew sun and rain
We were happiest
when we had nothing
Loving from a distance
Cold at night
Warm in the thought
Summer when we talked
Balmy beaches, cold drinks
In hand, affection in the heart

You departed
I stayed
You have learned bitterness
Shouting out to everyone
How you got manhandled,
mistreated and left out
in the cold

Licking your wounds
in the desert
Where the coyote howls
your pain for you
The rattlesnake hisses revenge
The cactus survives eating sun and sand

Em Dash

(Image from I.guim.co.uk)


Long-distance running
is futile if all is needed
is a dash
Let 'em sprint when
his spirit is willing
He flies on wings white
with the sun's smile
darkened by moods
that turn violent, sudden
as thunderstorms
from the east
Soaring to heights
never aspired for
finding love in mid-range
older than bald
unsightlier than labor lost
Yearn for return
Strip soul soldiering
faith let go in inches
In a war where
words get dirty down defeated
The reappearance
shall bring peace
A return of fields pristine
Golden, healthy, moving
onward in a lope

A Regret

                                               (Image from www.wallcoo.net)

A regret to never having seen you dance
on feet un-ballerinalike, a behind Beyonce worthy
Voice that half whispers, half flirts
They all fall in love with you
But you claim I'm your Ali, the greatest
Your Hulk, the biggest, greenest,
Dirtiest, meanest, most honest
Love of all time
Is a long time
I believe you each time
The fool that I am
We haven't even lived
One percent of one percent
Of eternity and we fight
Forever it seems now
Missing you even though
I know you're hating me
This time for keeps it seems
Goodbye is your favorite word
It is unsheathed, a sword

Henceforth & Hereafter

                                                  (Image from Johnrmath.com)

It took the earth shaking its head as if denying

The miraculous discovery of love unfettered by ideals

Bound by nothing but whispered suggestions

That this affection is true

The primacy of the world’s first dawning

Produced dew on the greenest blade of grass

We are old enough to realize, to submit to laws

We used to mock, at best ignored

We are tired, we are wiser

We are not giving up

Just sleeping off glory’s hangover

Every day henceforth is hope and yearning conjoined 

See you in the here and the hereafter

On The Street Where I Live

On the street where I live

Corner Rose and Tulip

Love and rejection intersect

The taking and the purging

Adoration and detestation

Religions of the mad

Sanctifying the sad

War and devastation

Building houses in the sky

They fall and still you wonder why

Sand, guardian of cerulean sea

Would have been better

But for the mountains of delusions

Offers of company and currency

From across the greatest ocean, vast divide

Growing older in comfort and misery

For lost love and prideful hurts

Casualties of weird know no bounds

Atlas shirked his titanic task

The gods condemn mortal foibles

Forgetting they are of clay themselves

I live on a street

Where doves hawk wares

Unaware of the fear that makes

The world go sensurround

Getting off is not an option

But, please, do so

Get off on your private kicks

The gents will soon have no dames

The streets will soon have no names

Legerdemain

                                (Image from Feritrad.org)

Love lost is the most exquisite pain.
A crushed heart bleeds worse than the reddest rose.
Tears are real but unbelieved.
Words are mocked for being slave to sentences.
Lies can pass for the truth as craft is refined.
Promises linger for as long as they are heard.
Lecture a loser and he wins.
It's all sleight of hand.

11-String Minstrel

                            (From i.istockimg.com)

Under the rainbow umbrella to parry the sun
He picks notes and strums accords
For coins and stares
Thoughts of food, shelter and meds
Get lost in his music
That is all his woman who sees everything thinks of
The pound of mound
The tinkling of metal striking can on ground
Dry of dust and spit
And blood on the run
The banjo man's face is Castilian
High cheekbones and thick eyebrows
Eyes gray born that way
He is the archetypal slave to love
Fool in a swoon
Swan wan in a pond
Reflections ghost whispering in want
Sighing in pain and sigbin rain
Insulares insulated shielded from the elements
But not from the exploitation of contemplation
Cold deliberation and cruel absence
The squonk cries into sorrow
It sheds tears to melt itself into nothing
The minstrel is swan and squonk
A renegade monk
This is not a love poem
It is not even verse