She Said

She Said

You are the breath in my lungs
She said.

Words have power.
They bring reality to hopes
Animation to concepts
And power to life.

Words charm and thrill.

You are the breath in my lungs
She said.

I believed her
Trusted her lovely words.

You are the breath in my lungs
She said.

How could I know
To her
Words were
“take-back-able”
The way children take back words
Play with power
And tease with intentions.

You are the breath in my lungs
She said.

But she took it back
The way Lucy jerks back the football
Just as Charlie Brown runs in for the kick.

You are the breath in my lungs
She said.

Just kidding.

 

Legion

It has been a long while 

Since this pervasive gloom

Has returned to infest

Our national backbone. 

No need to recount the multitude

Of dangers.

They are Legion.

Every evening I sit doing 

Risk Assessment. 

It may not help that recently

In the midst of a sleepy Sunday

Two men attempted to break through

Both my front and back doors

Simultaneously.

It was damn unnerving.

Thundering slams onto 

My locked doors.

Screams from the intruders

Threats from myself.

I was prepared to kill them.

Nothing I've experienced 

Is more sobering than 

Centering your blade site

On center mass

With the intent to forever stop

A beating heart.

Yes.

..the Afghani sun boils the concrete

On the streets and tarmac in Kabul.

Possibly the blood of the Innocents

Will bake into sticky reminders

Of those murdered.

.....

Night breezes stir river grasses

And chills the bodies of the hopeful minions

At our borderless south

Replete with disease and covert terrorists

Not to mention the tens of thousands

Simply searching out a dream.

.....

California is on fire.

.....

West of Nashville, bodies float

Face down 

Over what once were blueline highways.

.....

Where went our sleepy dreams?

The warm embrace of children?

The sparkling midnight eyes of lovers?

Lazy, meandering drives 

Through the heartland?

I know where mine went.

They all dissolved into  

A universe narrowed

By the laser point of my pistol

Centered on the chest of the man

I meant to kill.

The Inhalation of Skies

 

  i am Wind!

i am the inhalation of skies
lungs of terrible draft
and willful fury.

i am Tornado!
i spin with hell's
centrifugal anger
and i will sweep far
your most worthy foundation.
i will lift high and dash your infants
with more ferocity
than Herod
stripping away every
cherished
prize.

i am Hurricane!
i will level your cities
break your levees
and forbid your populace
to return
rebuild
re-begin.

i am Wind.
i am deaf to
cantons of mercy.

when you believe you are safe
build monuments to the slain.

        But
I WILL RETURN!

I am Destroyer Wind.

 Ready for the Lacquer 

The veins in my hands

Are blue-line highways.

The timepiece on my wrist

Will endure

Long after the bones beneath

Lie in gloom and dust.

 

The flag I now salute

Will add stars to its constellation

Long after those I know by heart

Are lost to memory.

 

Those who find my marker

Cannot know my love

For cherry pie

Baseball

Bright red pickup trucks

And dark silken hair cascading

Like waterfalls

Around soft shoulders.

Even if they did

What profit is there to the sleeper

Or the waked?

 

Even now the tree

From which they make my

Future container

May have been cut, planed and sanded

Ready for the lacquer.

 

That is as it should be.

One more trip around the sun

May exact more toll

Than I am prepared to pay.

 

My body has served me well

In its course of years.

It is good to not step a moment

Beyond that which will

Gather me to my fathers.

 

For everything there is a season

And a time to every purpose

Under Heaven.

 

The Plow and the Reaper

Moonlight on the wide prairie

Lightly kissed the perfectly still wheat land.

Preternatural powder

Had fallen as snow.

In the distance farm houses glowed

From within.

Brilliant security lights blazed

Illuminating barns and outbuildings

Like sanctuaries of humanity

In starlit seas.

 

Silent in the midnight sky

A New Corn Moon

Settled in the palms of the Milky Way

Promising the eagerly hoped-for harvest.

 

A chill climbed my back

Spreading into the ladder

Of my ribs and chest

Settling below my sternum.

 

Who am I that this sacred mystery

Should embrace me here?

Neither friend nor lover

Has touched me as did this moment.

 

In the gasp of a spinning atom

I felt, all at once, the wink

Of the Divine.

 

In my body is the promise of generations.

The blend of my planting

With the seed of my sowing

Future eyes will open to this amazing mystery.

 

Other New Corn Moons will illumine children

Grandchildren, and their children

Warming their now un-birthed bodies

Whispering into their yet un-opened ears

The holy secret.

The secret that knows no words

Lives beyond nouns and verbs

Without structure

Yet strong with hope

Widely smiling at both

The coming of the plow

And the gathering of the reaper.