Friday, March 27, 2015

The Elders Are Confused


You call us unruly children,
but you confuse us!

First, your cousin came,
eating insects, drinking honey,
preaching re-thinking,
shoving stubborn heads
under cold Jordan's
waves.

Clearly possessed!

Then along you came
laughing, eating, drinking,

with sinners consorting,
singing songs of paradise
to prostitutes.

So what's it to be?

Mourning
to John's dirge?

or dancing
to God's piper?


****
ref: Mt 11:16-19

(8 Dec 2011)



Thursday, March 26, 2015

School-children in the Courtyard


Like red flowers they sit
awash in the sounds of the day
the frantic machinery of the garden,
saws, growling blades leveling
rebellious weeds.

In the blue breeze,
they nod.

the ascendant sun,
sovereign of the living afternoon,
showers them
with a solar embrace

and gently rocks them

all off to sleep.

Monday, March 23, 2015

Fill Your Life with Bright Morning

Fill your life with bright morning,
breathe deeply the wave-kissed breeze
and run until you no longer touch the earth.

Pay no attention to the darkness that lurks
just beneath your feet, the swirling vortex
pulling you down, drawing your singing blood
into the unknown land.  If you hear grieve
the morning dove, say it’s not for you he sings;

oh, fill your lungs with the pure,

cool hope of spring!

(23 March 2015)

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Capitol Corridor



The Capitol Corridor moves heavily through the dark,
crossing the thinly guarded streets, blaring, berating
impatient drivers waiting for flashing poles, sparking
their rage as they glare at watches. The ground shakes,
rolling earthquake, Cyclop's eye, headlight throbbing, crushing
bright straight rails, pounding diesel relentlessly hauling
into no-man's land, receding rails guarded only by brush
and grassy grade and two white wooden crosses, with a basketball
and a balloon for the lost children; caught in the sweep of flashing lights,
they first see the flash, then feel pain, and then blackness swallows them whole,
the suicide, the missed warning, the lost opportunity, the crying
mother searching deserted tracks. But tonight nobody's here, no
despairing child, drifting, desultory, home no longer an option; and so
undeterred, the silver and blue train rolls heavily on to Sacramento.

(Posted  by )

Morning

light, liquid, over-
flowing bright leaf, washing clean
night’s graven, dull stain.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Nightfall

the darkness rises
over low roofs

past the weak glow
of my window -

through rough fences
into trees it drifts

black space filling the holes
between roses.

(17 March 2015)

Monday, March 16, 2015

Tree and Cloud


Photo; Tree and Cloud by David Saltaire

Upward strains brittle
limbs, arid tree lifts grey age
drifts down love’s pure grace.

(9 Aug 2012)