Monday, March 31

Caterpillar

CATERPILLAR
don’t touch, don’t touch
on the dark paths of the Black Forest
it will make you itch, burn, sting
will make your tender skin blush
now hush!
listen to me.
it crawls along, makes you grin,
but will you regret tomorrow?
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQe84V7OKz7X-boM8OBh8dE9EGipxhRpN6W3Q&usqp=CAU



Sunday, March 30

Joshua

JOSHUA
Rattle cup, spill the bones.
Ribs read--digits deciphered. 
 Ossified missives in the living’s leftovers.

Who’s to blame for temptation tasted?

Web of wasted want, plaiting
words in dusty primers, dark closets,
lost battles.

Joshua, don’t damn the demand--what was taken
touches superstition, speaks to suspicion, trembles stones
thrown for the cleromants.

The righteous practice idolatry behind clever curtains.
Nevermind the others; gods choose those
who choose themselves.
https://vivekaswann.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/7-rusty-1400x1400.jpg

Thursday, March 27

Continuum

CONTINUUM
jester lover emperor death
breath by breath by breath by breath
baby youth adult and aged
lock us up in keyless cages
sandgrain pebble mountain peak
mighty mediocre weak
sage and dunce and quick and slow
continuum—where will we go
him and her and me and you
right and wrong and black and blue
hidden sighted silent heard
word by word by word by word
round and round and round and round
soulless sainted lost and found
http://www.cidadesbr.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/roda.jpg

Wednesday, March 26

The Lady in the Pond


THE LADY IN THE POND
Repulsive smolders ever-blighted light,
Converse a harbinger in placid glass.
Where angels once bedighted sylvan glades,
Now resolute encamp phantom brigades
And wait till what must be has come to pass.

A broken lance drags crooked on the ground
Where trods a skin-bag horse replete with bones.
Upon his back a withered, armored knight
Whose eyes confess a long-escapéd might
Rides hunchbacked; weary years he’s been alone.

Wherefore the maiden fair he ardent sought
In days his arms still vigor they possessed?
The long-elusive empress of his dreams,
Primeval simulacrum, love supreme,
Existed only in a mind oppressed.

This champion of courage, truth, and heart
Still clings in vain to hope of valiant cause.
While creeping underneath his bristled maw
A quiver turns a tenant in his jaw,
For in this wood he’ll give his sojourn pause.

What incandescence throbs beyond the briar?
He arduously from his horse descends.
The steed, decaying as it stood for years,
Expires as its rider disappears,
No more to traverse land from end to end.

This intrigue he must extricate from doubt—
An enigmatic moonbeam ‘mongst the brush;
With satisfaction chiefest of his goals
The knight in muted armor wades through shoals
Of gath’ring phantoms, clouding in a crush.

Discomfit clasps limbs 'neath his metal garb,
Poor worthless warrior by his virtue weak,
And lo! Approacheth he the crystal pool
Whose waters lustrous mirror heaven's jewel—
The pure inamorata he doth seek!

That hollowed man, just as a manikin
Will crumple when its pinioned parts go slack,
Collapséd on the bank, his grasping hands
Collecting in their clutch mere mud and sand,
And died he there betrayed, though soul enrapt.

Oh, eidolons deceptive, conjurers,
Illusions to delirium drove he
Who strove to bolster hope and vanquish death
With ev'ry naïve, unprolific breath,
For all his good bespoke deformity.
 
https://i0.wp.com/images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/461/cache/silica-hot-water-pond-iceland_46140_990x742.jpg

Monday, March 24

Menace


MENACE
Growing softer, softly growing;
Writhing serpent, never slowing
Its demented drive,
Aspiring to cryptic aspersions.
This menace
Dissembles lunacy,
Foments mutiny,
Evades all scrutiny.

Manifested as a flash of fiery ash—
Mendacious mocking, bomb tick-tocking,
Garnering compensation
From cruelty.
It’s been inside of you,
All this time.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/lWWkbFUX0hij2KlNLzBTDK2IbCAqj11L1Akq8D9SHl1gZP6L7O7HJoCpvnMaN15TVtvi=s123

Wednesday, March 19

Daniel


DANIEL
Listen—sculpted forms speak in the dim,
wait for the assumptions you’ll make,
slice the fragile air.

You lie abed, planetary motions in your head,
tragic trajectories melding into mornings
too dreary to dream.

Daniel—the lions pause their paces, bear the faces
of primordial passions and bygone illuminations,
salivating expectations of your visit.

Hear this—the sky poured the day you were born.
This violent den, these thoughts you pen:
incongruous with what moves through us. 

The thousand pigments of your skin, colors within,
not pale but pretty, strong one.
The big cats roar tonight;
sleep, Daniel, rest.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/22/3f/cc/223fcc2b6a72430334349b6cd183e598.jpg



Saturday, March 15

Sour Apples


SOUR APPLES
Candy apple crush.
This one is fruit left untouched.
A sun-gorged day, flickering in light,
draws the innocent.
As complicated as the banyan tree
whose roots become her children,
first indulgence
scotches sour apples.
http://rd-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/nouvelles_recettes/Candy_apples_in_a_row_%281%29.jpg?1422283780