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.

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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.

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