nedful things

It was an early snow,
soft spun cotton
in the nostrils.
It descended upon things
still alive,
tried to smother
their last breaths.
The limbs still hung
heavy with leaves .
They bowed low under
a weight they could not bear,
making them scrape the ground
and beg for release.

my hand
could have shaken them free
but there they lay

This morning, sun
teased with renewal
the roots of tenuous life,
that have not yet
ceased to feed.

For the liar sun
they are dying.
I see already
the shroud of brown
that surrounds
their golden faces.

Solitary

In your crowds
No eyes see me
shoulders jostle me
without recognition
push me aside
though I do not
stand in their way

My tongue
plays with words
feeling their thin skin
flakes of a lip
chapped and dry
until I am tempted
and bite them off

No one sees me
but the words
are naked
no flap of a coat
to pull against the cold
no pocket into which
to jam that clenched fist

They wait here
met only by
sideways eyes
glances that skim
the distance that
hands must carry
these hearts around them

Through these woods now aflame more brightly than
When a warmer sun made their filter green
My wandering path a stone fence follows
Of the unknown someone who held a deed

I want to see the hands that built this wall,
The construction of his life's boundaries
Chose one stone and rejected another
So neatly set one next and one upon

Were his hands like the hands of my father
Craggy knuckled mountains and blue rivers?
The rough hands of a farmer and framer
Whose work separated but does not fall

Though seasons and frosts may cause upheaval
And feet tread where they were not meant to go
The tresspassers were taller than these trees
When it was built and dryly set in time

A winding marker whose lines no longer
Make declarations, call the land by name
A simple and lowly expression of
The land's adoption and yet, by whose hands?

The ground was thick with it, Nature's litter.  Trees that once were plush green, had put on one last fiery show and shook off what they could no longer support. They settled for clean lines and a greyed minimalism; settled in for the grey austerity of a long winter.

"Autumn is not death" she said."The sweet smell of decay. The forsaken leaves, the fallen, unwanted fruit. This is the preparation. It only seems final, because it may be our last chance."



The snow came down slowly, silently, danced carelessly and without purpose.  Each flake disappeared at contact with earth, succumbing to the warmth of its landing site.  It was late October and the preparation was not complete. It comes back to me now. Each word strikes my memory as my feet strike the cold pavement and the echo of an uncertain gait returns to me from hollow streets. I wonder how many times I heard, not understanding?


"Winter symbolizes death" she said.  "But if this were death, I would die readily. A death soft and pure.  A death too beautiful for me."

I could only stand and look at her eyes, glacial and tearful.  I wanted to know what she would not say; wanted to know that which she protected from my discovery.


"Spring is not rebirth, only exhumation" she told me.  "It is a falling away from grace, it is an unearthing.  Beauty and serenity melt away.  It is my death."

It's too early.  I don't know why I want to be awake this early, there is nothing but darkness and the pounding rain.  There is nothing but the sense that the world has been given a coat of black semi-gloss paint, slick and wet.

I wake with a chill that has settled deeply and won't be dispersed.  I wake to apparations of thoughts that did not escape into dreams, but wait for my conscious acknowledgment.  I don't know which doubts to entertain first.  They all dance and vie for my attention.  Each shows its neediness and works at appealing to my sleep-drugged mind.

It doesn't matter which I choose, any of them sends my morning spinning into a complete reassessment of my life and the decision to fix everything.  My resolve lasts only until the hopelessness falls on me like a cold, dark rain.

I wander into the bathroom trying to find a light so that I can see my watch and know the time. It doesn't matter what the time is, I have been driven from my bed by an inner force and will not return there.  I wonder if I ever know the time, or how much time has gone by, or how much is left and what I will pay for what I have wasted.

The face in the mirror seems familiar but unfocused.  I see that the lines on my forehead look deepest after sleep and realize that it is while I tarry in unconsciousness that they are etched and carved. What is it that I do or think or dream that leaves such marks of worry on my face?  Where is my rest? I sleep, but do I ever rest? I have a brief thought of putting on some cream to soothe the dry skin and smooth those lines of tension but instead I simply walk away from the mirror. I cannot face the fear that is reflected there.

 As I turn, I notice that lack of exercise is diminishing any tone of muscles I had in my arms and shoulders and think I should go now and do exercises in the morning; but instead I pour more coffee and go sit at the desk in the dark corner, only to stare and try to bargain with an unresponsive computer screen.  The immobility emanates from my spirit but my body acquiesces.

Something nags at my mind, something lurks beneath the surface of my consciousness.  It has clothed itself in shadows, it pokes a finger and tickles a neuron, then hides again as if it were a game. Perhaps this is the dream unremembered, perhaps it knows the story of the lines.  I try to will it into lines on the page but it slips from my grasp and buries itself deeper into my subconscious.

 I want to write, but the words have left me and I have nothing but my coffee and my cigarette for company and no sound but the endless echo of the pounding rain.

It was their first date.  Theirs was a Story Untold.  She had primped and fussed, put on her best Chantilly Lace and waited In The Still of the Night for him to arrive.  Then finally, there he was:  Jim Dandy.  It was a Magic Moment.

"Little Darlin, Come Go With Me", he said, his arm extended.  Peggy Sue took his hand. She was hoping he wasn't like the others she had dated.  Johnny B. Goode? He wouldn't.  Charlie Brown?  Well, he was just a clown.  

Jim Dandy was sweet.  After a movie he took her for ice cream - her favorite flavor, Tutti-Frutti. They went dancing At The Hop.  He was the object of every girl's attention but he held her close and whispered "I Only Have Eyes for You". She knew then, she loved him Sincerely.

He drove her home in his Little Deuce Coupe.  It must have been The Time of the Season,  because it was a Rainy Night in Georgia and there was a Bad Moon Rising. But he said "Don't Worry Baby, I Can See for Miles and Miles".

He took her home and walked her to the door.

"Oh, Pretty Woman" he said.  "They call me The Wanderer and I was Born to Be Wild but you make  me want to change my ways.  Who knows why?  Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"  He kissed her passionately and whispered "Let's Spend the Night Together".

She whispered  back "Love Me Tender" and fell into his arms. "But", she looked at him with eyes that pleaded Don't Be Cruel and asked him the question her heart needed answered.  "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?"

"Baby", he said.  "Do You Believe in Magic?  Wild Thing, for me there is Only You".

The wind
was a tight-
stringed seventh
shredding the night.
It tore the
anguished leaves
from fragile branches,
Swept the rain across
black streets in
undulating waves
like riffs of a blues guitar.
It played her
drenched soul
like a Slowhand
in its bass line.

"My definition of Blues is that it's a musical form which is very disciplined and structured coupled with a state of mind, and you can have either of those things but it's the two together that make it what it is. And you need to be a student for one, and a human being for the other, but those things alone don't do it."
Eric Clapton (interview 1998)

There is a trend I have noticed in society, an increasing level of rudeness.  Not your average rudeness, such as not holding a door for the next person, or forgetting to say "please" and "thank you" but a meaner and more personal rudeness.  A lack of civility of course, but something more.  

This is illustrated for me every day in everyday interactions.  It is the co-worker, who having spotted you hurrying towards the office building in order to not be late for work, still rushes to hit the "close door" button on the elevator rather than wait themselves for a few more seconds.  It is the driver who is unable to see that tailgaiting that elderly gentleman is not going to make him go faster, he is simply going to get nervous and it will cause an accident. A crowded store parking lot at Christmas shopping season will prove to you the war-like nature of man as cars circle like vultures and drivers breathe threats against other drivers who have not recognized the territorial meaning of a blinking signal of the car hovering by a soon to be open parking space. Are we never able to slow down enough in life to enjoy a moment and to help another?

Yesterday a friend of mine, a disabled friend, was attempting to go through a set of revolving doors  as she is unable to pull open the heavy doors that are provided as an alternative.  She didn't notice that there were two men hustling through from the other side.  Their  powerful push on the door sent it going around faster than she had expected and the suddenness of the door slipping away from her hands  that gripped the railing startled her, and the next panel of the door struck her, propelling her backwards onto the brick walkway.

The reaction of these two men?  They walked on.  They walked on even though she lay there on the walkway, unable to rise.  They advised her that she should use the other doors, one was observant enough to say "you were alright until you hit your head".  Neither inquired as to whether she was alright, was she able to get up, did she need help or offer to assist in any way. They kept going because they had somewhere to go and besides, one of them seemed to think it was rather funny.

Maybe it's a lack of empathy, maybe that is what I notice.  Maybe this is just the selfish generation.  Maybe people have lost the ability to function as if they are part of a whole.  It seems at times I am surrounded by a sociopathic citizenry.  The benefit or gain to them is all, nothing else matters in anything they do.

Maybe I am just feeling cranky and a little helpless, because I wasn't there and I couldn't lambaste them with my ire and I couldn't help.  Maybe someday I will get over my anger and if these guys are lucky, it will be before someone spots them and points them out  to me.

Maybe if I could just take the world by the scruff of the neck and shake them until they got some common sense and decency... well, it's probably better that I can't.   Not while I am in this mood anyway.

She's the moon called Harvest.
Indeed, the corn field's stripped
a whiskered stubble that rolls
over the chin of the hill.

the world wears shadows
in the dusk

She hangs heavy, this moon
full and lingering low.
On the horizon she carves
a hole in the darkening sky.

the geese glean in the field
hollow stalks and husks

Harvest moon, sun's imposter.
Spilling golden light
as if to apologize for
being unfashionably early.

If my soul could speak
the flame it holds
would ignite the dried fields and
the trees would be as torches

But I am the tiny flicker of stars
long-dead, whose burning heat is
consumed by this distance
and only a cold whisper of me
may sing to this sky

Moon of reflected fire
shares no warmth.
Indeed, the stars beside her
shiver and tremble.

It doesn't matter anymore
it doesn't matter when
the words
the spilling
spread me
thin as onion skin

(the dry shed skin
the fragile wrapping)

un-veiled
un-dressed
un-known

changes)nothing(changes

So I leave it there
I can leave it on display
for the voyeur
uncomfortable
for the passerby

all the empty eyes)having(
no vacancy) filled

(I am not) here