Hail and Thunder where Hope Meets the End

Hail and rain beat the red off the tin barn roof. Thunder stutters while the salted tears of angels loosed from cream raiments pour onto the ground so much as snow stacked too early for the season. Apocalyptic droplets at the end of days that have run into themselves. Greed piled holiness tramping through the beautiful “could have beens” as the doomed masterpiece of the hopefully broken trod heavily across the land.

Trampled, trampled beneath the weight of heaven collapsing. Soaked, soaked in the dreams of all of those that once knew the direction they sought to follow. We let this happen. We let the monsters in and bred them in our hearts to be beggared, then sold off to the lowest bidder. We let this happen. We set fire to the oceans of life and love until their ashes drifted haphazardly across the ruins of our world. We let this happen. We decried the openness and jubilation at our fingertips to rejoice beneath the sun or moon-clad sky as free creatures wandering the magic that their brethren the stars choose to sparkle upon us. We let this happen. And now we rejoice in the blistering misery of our own defeat.

In the gasps of our failure, we can find ourselves. We are the dust of ancient suns decayed into life. We can reveal our nuclear radiance that would bless the entirety of time with an essence of gratitude and beauty so bright that it would shine into the endless void of the universe as a testament to what grew here. What fought and bled and lost and won and cried and mourned and shared and thrived and moved and wished and laughed and cheered and hoped and dreamed here. The lost will be brought into the welcoming arms of house and home as new families are born of that most primal and powerful light, love. Smile through tears most special ones, we stand at the cusp of all and nothing, let your eyes see the mysteries beyond, glimpse our eternal everything, and all that we had inside of us.

Hold each other close, and whisper your final breaths to those dearest. Our hour of despair and our hour of most compelling beauty comes now.

Hello human.

Awaken the Statue

All credit for the image to Conscious Reminder

Etched ink drawn out in scars so colorful and deep they collapse the night around them,
I stare at them, on my arms, on my chest, on my fingers, on my neck,
this collection of reminders I wear to remind me of experiences,
they are my gateway to recall, to the moments that shaped me, that broke and remolded me.

Memories pour across the neurons, a kaleidoscopic whirl of time merging from past to present,
let me bathe inside the warmth of the smiles, the haloed intensity of each saturated moment,
let me wander determinedly into the shadows of loss, the grief, the regrets, the mistakes,
let me step boldly now across the insanity, the passions, the desires, the absences, and the half forgotten faces.

Take me to the sculpting block where all the roads merge to one, where stone is chipped with experience,
where the cracks define the figure and are the map into my soul, the escape route for my heart.
Let me see the tools we used, from tormented days to breathless ecstasy, from fear to love, from madness to peace,
all the fractured chunks on the floor, finally appreciated for the masterful strokes the universe wielded.

Walk me toward this newfound person, chiseled from the inside and the out to become a reality,
able to see and be seen fully without the cloak of mystery that all raw material has.
It took decades, it took patience, it took heartbreak, it took courage, it took honesty, it took determination,
it took error after error, it took forgiveness, it took deliberation, it took choices, it took exhaustion.

It took every painstaking moment, every particle of hope, and every bout of confusion to get to this moment.
Etched ink drawn out in scars, paint that will never be removed on flesh that yearned so desperately for meaning,
reminders of where it all began, and the journey to where I sit today. Grateful for the path,
mindful of what it cost me and those that entered the studio of my life, open to the light the bathes this world,
in love with existence and the chance to shine bright enough that others may find their way out of the dark.





Pandemic Inside/Pandemic Outside

Cantankerous, walloping headache from hell,
comes driven on words sweeping born from the fell.
If now is the darkness that blocks out the curs,
then drive, devil, drive to blot our their slurs.
With skull thrashing and blood pumping so loud,
it’s hard to think with the internal noise like a crowd-
mocking, bantering, shuttling words,
as feet shuffle and wisdom flies off with the birds.
Never knowing from whence it was born,
scratching echoes from those blissful days we all yearn.
Pandering blasphemous gasps for sweet air come at last,
now that the sound stops and you care for what has come,
gone, and now passed.

Extinguished Rhymes for a Dark Nursery

Smile.

Tremble, baby, tremble,
come gnattering at my door,
the last I heard the story told
I found myself the whore.
Through dancing devils and despair,
where rainclouds covered black,
we’ll smoke these cigarettes this eve
talk only of the facts.
While vapor mists exfoliate,
come wrapping round my lungs,
tell me, oh, my dearest one,
from where do nightmares come?
In that lingering silence,
where faces seek to fade,
electric will the tension sit,
my question on display.
Clever feelings will run loose
till they gather heads of steam,
together waiting for the rush to burst
rip loose like Satan’s scream.
Forever tick the seconds,
into idly running dust,
I know not why the torment,
but darling, dearest, I just must.
Sincerity is cleanliness,
stops putrid stains from spread,
but Botticelli had more words
from his canvases so dead.
Stoke the embers of your heart,
go on, let the pyre burn,
never is a long time from now
and it currently is your turn.

Dead Fish (a poem)

All credit for image goes to WildAid.org

Dorsal fins cutting through the water
where all the minnows go –
if I were you I’d run for shore
instead of watching dinner and a show.

Instead you flop and flounder
indistinct against the water –
concerned with treading in place
while things are getting so much hotter.

It’s a shame for all them fish,
the ones that got caught far too soon –
they looked so playfully fun once,
now they’re bathed in blood beneath the moon.

Winter Devilry

The Devil Makes Three

Duplicate that hardened flow of hate
which wrestles inside our hearts-
where blood will pump and agitate
those impulses which never stop.

Find wisdom in the madness shared
the endless beat of noise against-
where blood will pump and glare
these impulses which hit intense.

Jump the hoops and tangled webs
that wash across our veins-
where blood will pump and slowly ebb,
these impulses aren’t all sane.

Damn each fellow man beneath a river of coal,
driven by demons he’s never met-
who haunt him during times of hope,
scald his soul despite the snow.

Pink Stuff

Credit for photo to: blog.writersdomain.net

Damaged in an intrinsic way
which belies the way we think,
I’ve settled now in harmless times
with glasses casting shades of pink.

Never say the world is tough
or filtered with what’s unfair,
in desperate times when life sucks
take the cue and be aware.

So crinkling in memorized skin
and dancing with memories come neigh,
I’ve taken solace in the work being done
strive always to hold my head up high.

Plasticity in that neural net
the one which directs the play,
regrows the joy that fear had stole
and gives birth to come what may.

Ink Speaks & Words Share

All credit for image to Project Interfaith

Pen me a story all pelted with pain–
I’ll send you a memory quite completely insane.
Pen me a story all covered in scars–
I’ll whisper you love underneath the stars.
Pen me a story all wrapped up in joy–
I’ll rip off the paper and play with your emotional toys.
Pen me a story all soaked in ambition–
I’ll congratulate you from a distance and hope for fruition.
Pen me a story all righteously proud–
I’ll admiringly stand and clap just as loud.
Pen me a story devoid of suffering or shame–
I’ll question how long you lived and whether you played the game.
Pen me a story short on words but big on feel–
I’ll embrace your passion that fills me with zeal.

For each story you write and each tale that you tell,
connection is made as we all walk this road of life to the final farewell.
Strangers no more as the wording unfolds,
your experiences are more valuable then ever would be gold.
Friend since you vulnerably shared to cross the divide,
forever you’ll find my acceptance as I stand by your side.
We all start alone until our experiences happen,
no one need stand lonely feelings that they’re trapped in.
A world without others who have felt all the same–
if you’re missing companionship then drop any shame.
Drop any pretense or false facing thoughts–
your loveable for you, now and until time itself stops.

Spider Goddess

All credit due to REA Gallery through Fine Art America

Outside the borders
of this unquiet mind,
sit eons of wisdom
woven as invisible mesh most fine.
Alone sits Arachnae,
that fate wielding bug,
completely immersed
playing God string by string,
thud by thud.
We’d settle for reality
if only for thinner air,
know what’s happening,
get right-sized and repaired.
But truth hangs us all,
the devoted or mellow.
Chokes down in the craw,
suffocating like an ungenerous fellow.
So let’s sit side by side,
have a novel discourse.
Talk free will or destiny,
while the galactic spider calls for a hearse.