A Geography of Time (May 2015)
Under this skin, a geography of time
Lift up the sky, ring stones and ceremony
To walk the long processional still
And plot points between veins, another year lingers in stain
The rising Mid-Winter sun
In a breath, the world glitters again
As we look for vertices in memory
And ligaments confined
The shared celebration, our motif still
Longing for verticality, bodies rising high in stone
In sickness and in health, the ritual remains
A skin moment forgotten in the longue durée
To the release of history
Longing to be spoken again
I can unfurl this body, map out the stars and decode its utterances
It speaks unto itself but is embedded in the Universal—can you hear it still requesting?
A segment here, a limb there
Its language so bewildering and uncanny
A simple song I cannot unlearn
Swim to the surface—do you see?
Packed in peat for millennia
Something so familiar
A chance encounter, a new beginning
Bones remembering, the arc of our story enchained still
You can lose yourself in these mysteries—do you wander too?
An echo of a memory embedded in flesh
And the beating drum that pulses on and on
On to the collective refrain
The last crescendo before the final measure, the denouement so near
It won’t loiter long
Catch it in jar to wonder at it stillA Beginning (November 2014)
In the far
reaches
Of the
galaxy, the long reaching arms of life found you
Curved your
limbs
Rolled you
over and marked you for fate
And let you
rest in waiting until your number was called
You spoke
the languages of star dust then
Geometry,
elements, such
The
mysteries played no dialectical games
Knowledge
and being melded, light and sound
You could
see as all see
No
separating extremities
Or monikers
of distinction
Only
sweetness and light
Etched into
your beating depth
Let you hold
the weight of the universe in your hand
Let you
reach into that palatial unknown and bear the fruit of your ancestry
Let you sing
with the stars.
***
***
Echocardiogram (September 2011)
She said lie still,
pressing sound waves into my chest
Wrapped in linen, I
saw the open of my heart
Bouncing, auditory
unrest and electricity
Black and white fabric
of innervation
I stared into the
Gorgon of mortality
Oh—that’s all?
I could bite it. Rip
the skin. Tear the flesh
Taste finality in song
Unfurl this skin and
find the final gate
Heard the swirling of
blood, the violence of life
I looked inside
And gaped with
savagery. It was unknown to me. A figurative lesson no more.
I saw the open of my
heart and wanted to crawl inside
My essence—like coming
home
***
Lion Heart (May 2014)
***
In Search of Real (July 2014)
Lion Heart (May 2014)
Is this once lion heart
Only a shriveled core now
This once sinewy, lithe body—that turned, curled, soared in the air
A lump of flesh, withered and unyielding
Selfishly holding to just mere existence
But nothing more
Is this once verdant, crisp life
A pile of leaves
Breaking in the wind
This palimpsest of learning, the lasting wisdom
Simply a prating fool, a soundless voice
A page turns and I’m myself again
The memory of the climb, the climb
So high, so unshackled
So carefree
The rushing water, the many feet above
The sound I’ll never remember
The brightness I still sense
All these, embedded in my flesh
The memory now to keep
***
In Search of Real (July 2014)
Too many chemicals, not enough real
Not enough feel under this skin
Kick start your organs and the symphonic sounds of a body beating
Too much remembering, not enough now
Remembering the feel and the rhythm of functionality
The simplicity of movement within time
I’m going to alchemy this skin to be once again
Utilitarian though ransacked on delivery
Too much drip, drip, dripping
Dropping on this flesh a swell
To start the day under a spell
Of chemical wonderment
With the sun shining through, through, and through you
A warrior dance
An ancient song
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