lead boot sinking,
looking up to halo’d light,
a light that gets smaller & dimmer
as one plunges down through cold waters —
deeper & dimmer;
&
dumber & numb-er;
until there’s nothing left to exhale,
and every urge to fatally inhale
The winter skies are drifting slowly in,
and soon the snow will begin to amass —
the powder settling so scant and thin,
accruing between blades of withered grass.
How many times will skies sputter, thusly
without it piling up or drifting deep?
Just coating soil like the world went dusty —
not snow one shovels but the kind one sweeps.
A child’s and an adult’s prayers differ.
While grown-ups are content to prolong Fall,
kids wish that winter will get here quicker —
but all wish Christmas snow will come to call.
“And when will snow liven our bleak doorstep?”
A question I once asked, but now forget.
I
crossing the street
in Bangalore traffic —
never more alive
II
even in wee hours,
if I hear only silence,
I know I’m asleep
III
random backstreet:
yet, more color than a
carnival midway
The grass is growing through the cracks,
but each man’s view is parallax.
So, while it seems ill-kempt to one,
others are charmed by the same facts.
The voyage, now, is at an end.
The anchors have been cast.
The fleet bobs silently offshore,
looking boundlessly vast.
For fog has settled on the bay
and ship shapes fade to gray.
They count themselves infinite ships
while bounded by that bay.
The sea deceives, that much is true;
the rest we’ve yet to know.
Some will swear that trawlers sit there
that were lost long ago.
There was a sweet girl from the Netherlands who worried the hard rains might never end. When the streets became moats, she traded bike for boat, and rowed fast that girl of the Netherlands.
under jungle
creepers, trees, and moss
lost cities wait
one clean edge
of rough chiseled stone
peeks from mound
when we’re gone
something will remain
of us, and not…
The sunset glowed orange in a wrap of clouds,
looking like the interior of a hollowed tree trunk —
fallen, split open, and with fire burning inside.
The vibrant colors fire my child’s mind —
colors as unsubtle in hue
as the clumsy building blocks were in shape
that I played with as a boy.
2020!
You are the time that tried men’s souls…
not to mention those of:
-women
-children
-the non-binary
-the undecided
and the un-huddled masses,
yearning to be close.
There was a hairy man from Nepal,
more hirsute than a Neanderthal.
One would be hard put
to tell him from Bigfoot,
’til turned gray that old man of Nepal.
