words words words – Page 38

January 10, 2015January 10, 2015

arrival

light spilling
onto an improvised desk
glowing, dimming
like beams, streaming
lighthouse-bright
turning, spinning
slow with flashes
warning, beckoning
the tired ship
braving the sea.

to land safely
at dock and shore
is the finished script
of sentence-senses written
composed, structured
compr(om)ised to a
comprehensible whole
the passengers
crowded, waiting

words delivered
past the storms of doubt
now anchored at the docks
of paper, screens
safe havens
from darkness, white

inky bows tumbling down
gangways, printed
into the open arms
of readers
embracing, holding, kissing
the whole crowd
with joyous glee

and solemn satisfaction
that all are present
ready to be read
entirely
safe and whole
on the page, written
free.

January 6, 2015February 9, 2015

one to another

to write about the touch
the moment
to write because you miss
a kiss
the warmth of a known body
the smoothness of once-touched skin

to know you
and yet i don’t
not entirely
but intimately
between yes and no
and unspoken words
like the swish of sheets
in between

we’ve met before
known each other
in a time
another place
long ago
days, weeks, months
and moments together
one to another

for a heart remembers
runs and jumps
at a long-lost sight
while that which cautions
worries
cries foul in the brightest light
sings itself to sleep

within the embrace
smooth like water
an unclenched fist
open wide
to memories, present
a quiet rejoicing
together,
no longer apart.

January 5, 2015January 11, 2015

before betty

Sitting snug, reading the classics
encore une fois Madame Bovary,
and her insufferable complacency
with the ridiculous romance of thin-paper novels.

And yet, I understand her need to be something else,
something more, to escape the quaint provincial life,
full of the foibles of the French bourgeoisie.

Sadly, you can see the end coming,
the flights of fancy building to catastrophe,
long before young Emma befuddles Monsieur Bovary.

Most disturbing however, is the gleeful sneering
of the narrator, peering
over my shoulder while reading,
a heartless voice, laughing with glee
at the – albeit predictable – calamity
that is poor Madame Bovary’s.

And yet I turn another page, if only
due to an understanding of her genuine suffering,
silly and selfish to narrator, parish and priest,
yet very real to poor Emma,
that feminine mystique resting darkly
in her desperate ennui.

January 5, 2015January 5, 2015

morning light

white ships sailing
grandly across the blue
vapour trails steaming, dissolving
swallowed up in the light
while I lay watching, waiting
for inspiration, a moment’s insight
simply something meaningful to write
while cotton white giants pass by
carrying rain and snow
and other forms if H2O
to far-off places
sweeping the skies
Pegasus, delicate, winged
flying by.

January 4, 2015

imagine once

there is something in the silence of the clear lines,
the divine arches of the old orders, now long lost in time
where silver and marble, wheat, amber and gold
were the wealth of a few amongst many;
that time, once, so far away
celebrated today in lands of plenty
a time, once, where life was short, hardship unquestioned,
and the sweetness of solace a luxury felt to the core.

A time, yes, when fire was known for its ecstatic warmth,
the flames divine and terrible, their power
and presence felt too often on human skin and human soul;
a time, too, when water was the sword of truth
by which holiness was divined, though to drink it alone was unwise
unless in beer, ale, or wine;

that time where earth and air were powers that gave and took
that made and broke whole realms with wind and weather and storm,
by the droughts so dreaded, and crops finally growing,
the rains prayed for , the sun steadily glowing…

…can we, today, in our lands of plenty
imagine once, just once, what it meant to be, to live, back then
when time was sun and moon and stars,
legends holy and sung, the songs of praise whispered and hummed
over open fires, heating the cauldrons that fed all in house and hut,
after thanking with grace and gratitude
the great, the holy, the one clouds 1