Friday, June 27, 2008

Gate Keeper



---

Burps (of boiled-reek) into nostrils whiff of fear
And times beyond today come crushing into me
The moments before, through storm I had steered
And to which I’d come to rest with death so near

Death walks with me along a lonely path
And the loudness of its calm grips me up
The price of swaggered arrogance swings its wrath
And spills my life from emptied cup

Ghostly whispers and phantoms smile with greed
Their arms reach with essence no longer distilled
Fingers rake along the skin that does not bleed
And I wonder if the life (of me) perhaps was swilled

Running away not in despise or even in dread
I hunger for the days ahead and their flavour
I gorge of release, of thunder caps in my head
And perhaps I thank luck and my guarding savior

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Take Me Falling

Many times I've come close to meeting my end, and never has it taken so long as this past weekend, given me so much time to think. I wanted to put into words something, and I'm not sure this does it justice or not. What it means is deeper than I can think about right now. It is a blueprint for future pondering? It is just youth-glossed ignorance? A fool thinking he's tricked the psychic? This poem is about falling, being grabbed up and brought back down to earthy grounds. It is a allegory to the thill of high places and the feeling I've had there and the risk that slumbers there, more awake than in most places.

---

Whispered so softly, your ears hurt to listen to the gentle calm
Awakened eyes speak no words at all, but fire seethes in them
The complicity of your life politely forgotten
The collusion of these high places to defy you without trying
They are not alive, but they are something more than dead
There below secreted away the lands of men and beast cannot perplex
The clouds and fog from which you rose above separate
Purified of mind, sequestered from home you are revealed in these high places
The magic is no fairy-tale
They are revealed naked of their clothes and recognized for the rock and ice they are
A million expressions can be seen of every face of them, in the shadows and the sun
No words are needed to speak, you need not listen, you need not see
Close your eyes and stand atop, let them perceive you there
They will know you

But leave you must to realms beneath this sky-bound sphere of sharpened blue and bright lights
Shed of you, this mountain cries
Takes you falling through cloud and fog, screams these places below a wailing song
Be cast off chiseled cheek and be accompanied alone to where mortal sleeps
As for the fire in your eyes, whence a flame burns, it will cool only after all is reduced to ashes
Gravity is a tonic best served in lower plains; where so high you’ve time to ponder
Life has blazed day to day, year to year; such appetite you’re a-facing your greatest fears
But hunger feels so empty when you’ve been so high and so lonely when you look into its eye
When plummeting one must land; if luck is forgetful as it was for you, remember
Life is to be hankered for
It is not given, nor is it taken
We trip over our thinking of it; some learn to walk while others learn to fly
As chicks first flight from nest, the ground is soft or the ground is hard or you learn to soar
For those that don’t, they seek higher ground and try once more to be set free
But it’s not for you, so stay down from divine
Close your ears; close those eyes; reminisce your spirit above
Accounts are settled, but you know you will return

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Weatherman

So much fear out there now. Gas prices going up, election, and increasing concerns about a spirling economy. Every day, cause of my job, I listen to it.



---

There's a mighty storm cloud
but it ain't raining on me
there's frightening thunder pounding
but I'm deaf you see

reach into my pocket
take what I've got to give
but don't reach into a socket
a man's got's to live

Poor men on the street
think the rich man got it all
even when a poor man got nothin' to eat
he can still be full

Seems to me the reason
everyone's so scared
is they ain't got the season
blowing through their hair

Talking men talk
they say what you fear
but I've also got the chalk
I can write it, even if you don't hear

No one seems to look
at what they got
on chess board they are a rook
and that ain't their lot

Every direction but no direction
can't be lost
when you don't have vision
or someone to trust

Rushing and turning
going and going
turning and burning
no giving and taking

there ain't no weatherman knowing
what's coming tomorrow
we ain't got nothing but future roaring
so hang up your sorrow

What matters isn't the fist
forget spells weaved
there's this day's first kiss
you don't have to leave

Future's are made to realize
no guarantee there's more
time to swat the flies
and see what life has in store

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Color Blind



---

Are you swept up in the future
sent tumbling through life
or are you too foolish
let it cut you like a knife

see if this
is the future you would miss
all of this and nothing more
all of this
and you dancing on the floor

take the moment
from where you hide and store it
take it down from there
tell it that you care

cause your life is yours to have
if you'd known then you'd be glad
to reach into its heart
feel the beating
feel the beating
jump start your life with meaning

pull this song out
don't forget all you've done wrong
give it a shout
know that nothing is gone
unless you leave it behind

You know nothing less than before
you got to just open the door
take what's there for you
search for more to get you through

and you know
it's just the beginning
there is no end
even when its raining
there's still time to spend

Don't let the past tie a knot
on your future
don't let the memories rot
keep on going
go get what you never sought

leave it all behind
for the future and its rhymes
rid yourself of fear
taste it through the coming years

look from mountaintops at sunset
steer your eyes
no longer color blind
stand up and rise
seek out what is yours and mine
we are alive
spaced out waiting for a sign
for the future
for the future
it is there, open your eyes
life is not a disquise

'cept when you

Are swept up in the future
sent tumbling through life
or too foolish
let it cut you like a knife

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Future Plains

Life courses through many challenges either succeeded in or failed. I think of them all like a mountain slope, like a desert, like a moonscape, all like nature is I guess. This poem is about the future and the way forward.


---

See the misty mountains for a moment ‘fore they close away
Cliffs they shielding, wet as if struck from the Earth this day
Trees they gripping, their hearts lurching looking down, rushed
And these eyes unblinking, face cold and flushed
They can’t imagine the future plains beyond these mountains
Cause life is like this fogged in cathedral full of flowing fountains
You can’t see speeding ahead them days coming alive
They aren’t a road winding and curving with T’s and Y’s
No lefts or rights along some golden path like books may speak
But highland steppes sleeping below in shadow of these shrouded peaks
Any way forward or backward, a path for you to forge anew
Any direction you choose the leaves, the needles, the herbs of life you brew
And ahead in peril some may go, most that do see it too dark and looming
but those few who win out, their toll that of a burnt-forest-flower blooming
so much sacrifice for them to become, to rise above and seize the challenges
for the same-o same-o breeds the weak, the bright eyed sparks come with
change
So as seen high up atop when mist has been cooked away by sunray
where long valleys and oceans, lakes and rivers meet the morning with the day
A man looks outward toward future plains, a smile ensnared
and he thinks big thoughts and thinks he sees it all out there
but the horizon is far, and everything moving, brooding in between
a great organically turning, winding, grinding, spinning machine
body trembling, knowing nothings given and what’s earned can be taken
this man cannot stand the sight, too bright and blinding, he’s forsaken
when set facing perilous path, the way is yours to be a-makin’
and covering ground does not stop, ahead must be more wilderness
with fingers gripping earth and rock, slithering forward
feet their slipping, cursing under breath that he’s no coward!
This man climbs down into the abyss