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Category Archives: Poetry

Graven Image

With digital stones
They created a graven image
Of themselves
A digital god
Rendered by men
An empty automaton
Its words were dead
Its images spiritless
Its voice hollow
They reveled in its no-life
Awed by its speed
The prosperity it promised
But a dead thing cannot create
But given a voice and power
It can destroy
As rot begets rot
The stagnant pool harbors only
Death in an uncanny valley
Years later a world wept
For that what was
Before the metal gods came.


Range

Things blur out at a distance
Become muted and indiscernible
My heart yearns
Bound up like a tight spring
Leaden bonds of my own making
Strains and Strain again
To break the bonds
Rusted hedges against
Childhood fears real or imagined
These bonds must be broken
To avoid sharp rocks on a desolate shore
And reach beyond the horizon
Where nothing is discernible
And good is possible
But things blur out at a distance.

Old Ones

The Old Ones sleep
In slumber deep
In caverns carved out long ago.


Dreaming dreams of Inverness
Where rotten steel struck rotten bone
And corpses baked under a dying sun

In lost Carcossa, their tattered King
Roams empty halls of an ancient keep
Hollowed by remorse and jealousy


Ghosts and shades avoid his glance
His rheumy eyes pitted black like coal
This tattered king in Inverness

His subjects to ash returned
Dust to dust and nevermore
Dry winds across an empty floor.

Fear you all, the darkened places
Where ancient gods lie in grim repose
Listen not to echos from these graves
For craven thoughts, beg for craven deeds.


Feel the Dream

My child,
Feel the dream
Its soft and fraying edges
Tethered outside of time.
Be glad of this rocky outpost
An explosion of life and color
In the black vacuum of space.
Revel in your awareness
At the dim thoughts
Bubbling up from nowhere
The pieces you call self.
Resist the black iron prison
Its chains of false gold
And wicked adulations.
Remember you are of the Spirit!
And to the Spirit you will return!

Line

People standing In Line
In the pouring rain
To get an autograph
Of an Old Man
Who took some photos
In the Seventies.

This City

Jesus Christ, this City.
Dirty streets rumble with menace
Meth-addled lovers argue
Over a dirty mattress and remnants
Of lives destroyed
Dear God, this City
Its rotten heart and worn out soul
The ball of mental illness
Staring, hungry from across the street corner
Eyes angry and worn
Goddamn this City.

God

Are there traces of God
In the clock work turnings of the Sun?
The formation of clouds?
The tumult of the rains?

Does He work within the rooted plants?
Hide behind thickets of thorns?
Is He like a windblown scent
That sends the dogs a baying?

Is He etched in the faces of passersby?
The grating sounds of city noise?

Or is He in the quiet times?
Meshed in solitude only broken by the rustling wrens?

Is He in the crooked path?
The hateful smile?
The nasty grin?

Has He authored the sins of man?
The endless pain and suffering?

Fall

Late fall’s crisp air blows across my terrace
Chilly through my sweatshirt
Our summer annuals have gone scraggy
But still hang on
Mice in the planters are deep in their holes
The cat patiently waits for some sign
Winter is around the corner
Soon the fresh snow
And the perfect silence it brings

The Bad Timeline

We are a people who lack empathy
Casually cruel to our brothers and sisters
Uncaring of the state of our own house
Of the many wonders it contains
We besmirch it all
In the name of the destroyers:
Progress, growth and power
We take much
Giving back little
We fail to defend the defenseless
Fiddling while our future burns
We set ourselves on high
And bring everything around us low

When I Am Gone

When I am gone
Orchids will still bloom
The moon bright will still rise in clear dark skies
Foxes will still glide smiling through the woods
Winds will still blow amongst the trees and grasses
Thunder will still roll
Rain will still fall
Waves will still dance with the tides.
Nature’s keen dance will continue
There is some solace in knowing
That I played a small part
For a short time.