Archangel

ARCHANGEL

Perfect prism compromised

Stranger, stable—rare archangel

Bits of bits unrecognized

Awkward, able—sweet archangel

Moppish, foppish growing, grown

Foretold, fabled—false archangel

Earned a smile all my own

Lovely, labeled—dark archangel.

http://www.lovethesepics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Dismal-Angel-looking-down-on-a-grave-at-a-cemetery-in-Oslo-Norway.jpg

Minute Men

MINUTE MEN

Imagining supernal, limits laid on the eternal—

moves the minute man, his one through ten,

the fiendish things infernal.

Trace the silhouette of darkness; mark this

poem, it fails to harness

what the pearly permutations of elation

make so artless.

Now, precedence should show dissimulation is a no;

the antiquated fast inflates, the reverie expands, dilates;

remembered makes of memory

euphonic penitentiaries

and we remain the prisoners of

all that once was vagary:

felt funny, then, feels strange again,

this minute man, his one through ten. 

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/a0/19/f5/a019f5eaae04b2f70ca1fc853d76fbce.jpg

So Long

SO LONG

longer, now, it’s longer

took a shower, made it stronger

hair in eyes and

teeth in toes and

arcs so lovely in your nose

now these and those just don’t belong

they’re crushing bones beneath this song

it’s got too long, now, got too long and

we just can’t see wrong for wrong

so here's the longest long so long

so long so long so long so long

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9e/38/8c/9e388ccb251503867d360a2a48eaa3e0.jpg

Something Brightened, Something Dimmed

SOMETHING BRIGHTENED, SOMETHING DIMMED

Yellow skull, the palest eye

Pendulous in limpid sky

Hovers, playful, in the night

Tempts the heathens’ wyrd delight

Yellow skull in yellow air

Beacon to the maiden fair

Imploring on her ivory peak

For wanderers and what they seek

Yellow skull, the rotting face

Of dark decay and dreams misplaced

Awkward ever always, never

Leftovers of something clever

Yellow skull so sharp and hard

Many what your faces are

Placid paths so calmly limned

By something brightened, something dimmed 

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4b/a1/42/4ba1427658afddcc2f961a106a4c7f49--full-moon-the-moon.jpg

Gleam

GLEAM

Why rise this thing, inchoate mess,

in ragged, ribboned, breathlessness,

this fable dead before its read,

that has no claim to tenderness?

A season spent with languid days

through negligence and envied praise

becomes the song of all that’s wrong,

mines silver where once gold was laid.

Their pools of pearls, their opulence,

the keepers of my hope make dense.

In agony it bends its knees,

prostrates itself in blithe pretense.

No clouded morning waking dream

replaces what can only seem;

I seek in kind what you won’t find—

this hopeless and evasive gleam.

 https://shelfelf.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/sparkler.jpg

Before the Rain

BEFORE THE RAIN
Here again, before the rain, the sediment before the shame

The same—no one no thing to blame.

In plain and perfect parallels, in dusty caramels

Emerges from a will unnamed, its leafy citadel, the beauty of a beast

So plain still yet implausible.

Farewell, simplicity—felicity now feasts where once reigned parables

And vain reclaims the stately moods,

The earthy rising, misnamed moralizing, omens tantalizing.

Permission feigned; ambition gained:

The reckoning before the rain.

Photo courtesy of my sister.

Anna

ANNA

Soft warm things embrace mid-air;

The charm of darkness makes it fair.

She, Anna, story told so often,

Fails to make this reader care.

New violets bloom on moonlit nights.

In radiant amethyst, delight.

He, innocent of lurid tales,

Remains in awe of what shines bright.

Disdainful of the frost are we,

Embrace the lives the rest don’t see.

A mocking grin, a veil so thin,

For in our secrets, thirst is free.

Sweet succor in misguided act.

Refulgence draws the bloated back.

Again, again, the curlew cries,

Belabors false beneath the fact.

Regret is for mistake alone,

Not we who’re built of sterner bones.

Oh Anna, dear, you placed your pen

Beyond your world, your shifting home.

http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/34500000/Forest-gothic-34552734-902-600.jpg