Insurgent

“Speak Up,” I’m told,

“Perhaps you’ll be heard?”

But no matter my muttering,

no matter my “Excuse me sirs,”

no matter my screams!

No faces swivel in my direction,

with smiles and recognition,

“Yes, I’m here.”

No arms reach out in greeting,

“How do you do, my name is….”



So I don’t speak up,

I don’t!

Not to anyone,

But I nod at the tea party,

at the park,

at the schoolhouse,

at the pub,

at work,

and mutter some nonsense like

“That’s wonderful,

where will you vacation

next summer?”



But do not be confused here

just because I no longer,

“Speak up!”

Like a mosquito I’ve evolved

by feeding off my hosts

Who idly fill my ears with all I need

to know

to test the waters.

Soon fears will begin to itch

thoughts begin to buzz,

and blood begin to boil.

And I will be there;

they will hear me screaming,

“Revolution!”

A gathering place

White snow spirit;

sky blue, leafy green, black dirt,

placid lake, rosy sunset spirits,

swill my soul in your eyes,

and reveal to me your wisps of vivacious energies

vigorously gathering deftly

to sparkle, shimmer, animate,

bubbly, boisterously, bravely fascinate

every yarn, filament, grain

of my being.



Wise old withered Maple, Fir, and Cedar tree spirits

sweeping windy, slapping grassy, singing sun spirits

slide into my meandering thoughts,

twirl downward into my rot

throbbing, aching, yearning

for your calm, collective, peace giving

biting, blazing, breathing, thunder booming bravely

into and out of my soul

like the bloom of spring

blossoms from winter

and the quivering marsh, lumbering lake, shivering snow spirits

gather among all the others

for a celebration of everyday life

that ceaselessly rides forward

clutching, grasping, clenching

the futures theater

tirelessly acting

the scenes to come...

A flower in the meadow

By the way my feet touch the Earth,

it is me upon it,

not the sky on my shoulders.

By the way the wind brushes up beside me,

it is a kindred spirit,

always running, never slowing.

By the way a million stars

look down on me

it is 'I' who am alone.

By the way my heart knocks,

time is not second by second;

It is sadness and thrill,

fear and lonliness that measure.

By the way the sun locked her eyes with mine,

we were two broken pieces

made whole.

By the way each new dawn may rise,

it isn't merely the sun that lights the Earth

but all of us who brighten it.

Ink to paper - short poem

A story is a matter of words built upon words;
they can speak to you in thoughts,
tell of a life lived and died,
tell of a million tales of a million adventures;
they are the cherry blossoms raining from the clouds,
the nectar from every flower,
the salty tastes of every sad tear that ever fell;
they are a life imagined.

Subterfuge

Somewhere on the edge I adjust fear,
Sadness does not echo,
Happy does not pierce,
Fluid is my only vice,
I must move these feet and hands,
I must rise upward.

There is no action without reaction,
There are only sensory strings swarming my mind,
The smell of broken rocks acrid whiff,
The quenched thirst from a mountains liquid vase,
The sound of nothing human born - only nature,
The masquerade of wind and snow embodied together
in form and function.

Pleasure is writ in success and failure,
Determination is born of will and grit,
And in mountains there are men without disguise,
Life does not pretend to be,
There are no deceptions here,
We each walk in devotion,
Leave with a mind cleared like a meadow is of snow,
From it Spring will come
and a garden will rise from the cold
and for a short time you will flourish.

There is always balance!

Everything is bound to that,
Life and death,
Risk and reward,
I give credence to it all
and to my fears the most,
They are my boundaries shuddering and shivering,
twisting in the guile of desperation,
From them I learn to endure;
There are no smoke and mirrors
where man dangles from heights
and clings to cleft to escape gravity!

A wilderness may be my subterfuge,
My vial of emotional substance
that tempts me,
And motion forward may unbalance,
Yet, not everyone learns,
Not everything is fair,
but some learn enough
to balance in a world tipping.

Concerto

Even if I sit here
I will not hear your music
even if you play it forever
and I am here forever
- you can play it
but I will only hear the wind
or the birds chirping
I will only hear the rain bursting
on these meadows and their flowers
I will only hear a day’s independent tones
not the symphony of Nature
nor the beauty of her music

Abandoned

These lonely eyes that chase
the empty-cold erase
blind us from happiness
steal us of hope
dash us on the breakwaters
of endings we’d rather
wash our souls of.
---
Cannot our lives cease crashing
through days, years?
Would not every eye that peers
not see walls
too thick to break down,
too high to climb over?
---
If but a moment apart
could be released from realities grasp,
would not the gears of whirling lives
have an instant fractured
from hopeless veracity?
---
And if our lives
were not cast out into this
sea-scape of existence,
would not the callous-stormy moods,
burdensome-onerous hours
not pry our weary fingers
from the storm floundered boat of life
and but cease our existence
by removing us from it
either by choice or fate?
---
So if we must sojourn from this life
that is beget in abandonment,
do we not find happiness in between?
Is there not that satiating yearning of love,
that human-escort of desire
that hauls you aboard
when you seek the rails over-and-gone?
Is there not enough harmony to keep you rising
each dawn?
---
Perhaps we are not nameless faces,
or even lost?
Perhaps we are set on a course
bubbling-blushed with possibilities BURSTING dreams,
and it is up to each of us
to surmise our fate?
After all, perhaps God profits from our souls
battling to survive on the other side
in this floating reality we cling to,
cold and lonely,
shivering from that all-consuming shock
of existing.
---
And if it is our measure of determination
that lights the wick of our eyes
with the seething fires of emotional rainbows,
that which entreats the living being
with the longing to smile in the face
insurmountable odds,
then we will overcome merely surviving here,
and be happy
and never, EVER again,
feel lonely.