The poem of mine published by Medusa in May 2010. the images reposts from various sites

THE PRESENT

They broke the early edge of morning,

Filling the positions of the day almost

Immediately. Great platoons of moments

Forming ranks, files, minute by minute,

Hour by hour. There were so many

Ready to greet the dawn that it became

Impossible to predict what might occur

Between morning and evening. Love

Songs rose spontaneously from myriad

Places, decisions and resolutions assembled,

Sure of success. It was as if everything

That could happen on any given day

Would happen today for certain.

This went on every morning, no matter

What; Winter, Summer, Spring and Fall,

A seemingly endless parade. Surely there

Must be something to all this activity.

We stood on the hilltops watching.

We looked from out our windows.

We greeted one another and discussed

Every event as it unfolded itself. Each

thing seemed new. We hardly noticed

How it all worked until it became

Necessary to remember where we

Were and what was happening to us.

By then our joy had moved to the children.

We continued this way for an indeterminate

Amount of time and then it was over.

At first this seemed strange. Later we

Involved ourselves in the making of it.

We became the things we observed.

The poem is mine but the images are reposts from a website called turn of the century at tumbler.com

CRANES

The slow high step the cranes

Make seems of little consequence.

This is the beautiful. It lives

In the simplest of things.

We are listening to love songs.

They fill the mouths of birds.

They fit our ears perfectly.

The river gets very wide east of here,

Doesn’t seem like a river at all.

Eventually it isn’t. It becomes the

Great Lake that it is and finds

Its way through a thousand islands,

Rapids and gains intent to find the sea.

Here no one seems to notice. It’s a

Difficult place to live. Things like

Those cranes are a fine dessert that

Is too seldom found. Still we

Wait here watching. We are listening

To love songs. They fit our ears perfectly.

a poem and three images including one by Kay Nielson

CEREMONY

So many voices. A chorus

Speaking together. There is

Grace in the way the words

Form here. We have no idea

What is being said. But there

It is, pure and outlandish

As late June with its

Dreams of water and Summer

Love caught in its loins.

We walk along the sidewalks

On the edges of the park.

The fireflies are just starting

To be seen so we sit and wait

For the dark to consume everything.

I am in love with you, you

The one reading this. I want to

Take you in my arms and touch

You intimately, make love with you

With great ceremony and unbridled lust,

To be a chorus within you, not

Singing at all, but speaking so we

May hear in our core, abandoning gender,

Fine and carnal, pleading another kind

Of Summer, another mouth upon yours

Where speech stops attending us

Where all becomes sensation,

Steam rising from the ocean surface

Even before dawn is aware of it.

a poem Medusas kitchen published-I just wanted to have it here + three pictures

FAULT LINES

Sometimes the fault line, sometimes the fault.

There will be consequences for all the actions

Taken here, the wind, the rain, the mornings without

Incident when we neglected to differentiate between

One day and another, believing each day was just

Like another because our surroundings remained

the same. One cannot trust to consciousness

To explain change. People die totally unnoticed.

The kind of music they loved may appear in a dream

Shifting between call and response, Ol’ Hannah,

then that sound of hammer against huge steel nails.

We struggle and swim ashore. “Are you having

A good time?’ The ground beneath our feet

Opens and the tectonic plates move slightly,

Not much, just enough to bring down Los Angeles.

Our feelings are electric. They belong to the realm

Bounded by animals, guarded by animals, surrounded

By others who bear a resemblance to ourselves but

Will always remain other. We still choose to call them

Brother, afraid that if we do not we will no longer be able

to read the book, stand in lines with them waiting to get in.

This is a form or praying or so I am told by the swirl

time puts on on our presence here. There will be

consequences for all the actions taken here.

Sometimes the fault line, sometimes the fault.

a poem by me and three photos re-blogged

BIRDS

There were birds here.

One can see where certain

Kinds of grasses have been bent

Down to form places for their

Courting. There are hollows too

Lined with feathers and nests

Made of twigs and string, of floss,

Bright bits and scraps of paper,

Forgotten by all else but them.

Here too are tracks upon the ground.

Here, a book of soothing gathered

From their shapes and movements

In the sky or by the nature of their calls.

Yet, when we come here now,

There are no birds at all. Only

Signs of them remain. We must

Learn a kind of quiet, a special

Patience too and remain long

Enough for us to see them

With our own eyes, hear their songs.

They are like our own dear souls

In that souls must be regarded

In like kind to reveal and be

Revealed before us, full of colors, voices

Moving through the air, among the trees,

The shrubs, upon the waters too. Looking

Deep into the heart, toward dreams, toward

What is every morning of every blessed

Day that we may find birds there,

And know them, that may be quite enough.

Thanks to Mr. Door Tree and his Fablous Blog of early comics, here is the Maid of the mist

A new poem by me and some atomic bomb photos including the clown cloud and califlower

DINNER TIME

No one has used this road since

The end of World War II when

Rain came down for eight days

Drowning the wood, abandoning

Even the golden voices of the animals

That once lived here.

It wasn’t that it was dark,

Thoughts could easily become more dense

Than the crippled light that insisted

On being there despite having been foreclosed

And locked with thorns that seemed

Sharper than memory when unfolded.

But we came here anyway, if only

To be troubled by the fact that the road

Refused to go away or stop leading

To anywhere; a cut where, looking ahead

One could see the trees break and an open

Meadow lean ahead all the way to the lake

Shore. In the summer there were fireflies

That received the place like a memory.

Summer is gone, the war is gone

And we, for want of learning something special,

Something to place at the service of trying

To understand all the histories all over again,

Cause us to falter a bit and look

Cautiously about us to see if we can

Explain anything about this loss or the place

Itself that might leave us feeling

Intrusive about our need to be here.

The placid shadows, the mothers calling

Their sons home to dinner across the fields.