write poetry

A Room of Yellow

I was chosen from
the line at will
when he walked into
my space.

A stranger who appeared
from out of the blue
into a room of yellow.

His eyes shone.
His smile was bright.
He exuded gladness and
those good things
that can come so readily
in life.

Living became a sunny day,
storms on the horizon.
Those eyes held
so much promise,
his hands were always gentle.

From touches came
companionship leading to
depths yet explored.

A journey eternally long,
ended one cold winter hour.
Icy, were the looks traded.
Nothing good to come about.

Oh, the smiles were there,
directed at others.
Refused between two.

I see those gentle hands
from across the expanse
that keeps his touch from me.
I watch his face in moments spent
in limbo between then and now.
Dread appears and blocks out
all the sun that used to shine.

Those eyes once sparkling,
now encompass the dimming of day.
What shall tomorrow hold?
His hands are limp,
resting unsteady,
trying to remain strong.
His laughter is dulled,
coming not from within.

I see myself in him.
Two soul’s mirrored tears.
My fingertips need
to trace skin,
travel the maps once more.

Find that yellow room,
lock up tight the doors.

Easiness once easily accepted
is not easy at all today.
Friendship’s vows eroded
by falseness grown in
the dark.

His lips lost the voice
where those eyes saw
the value of me.
Silenced were touches,
words never spoken,
dreams left to die.

We’re moving onward
to find again a yellow room
where love comes
from out of the blue. . .

3 March 2007

A February Day

The propane tank stands naked now.
The snow having fallen to
join the blanket of blinding white
covering the expanse to the trees
in the distance.

The snow plow scraped
the black ribbon of highway
clean about an hour ago.

Out back in the field
behind the house,
the snow is a foot thick.
I saw a deer
at the edge of the row
of evergreens that grow
on the far side of the cold, cold ground.

The sky is the same color
as the scenery,
making it hard to distinguish
betwixt heaven and earth.
No wind blows,
yet the air is bone chilling.

The cat is curled up,
asleep in front of the wood stove,
lost in her own little world.
Chasing mice in her sleep,
I am sure.

I think I’ll curl up too.
Read a good book,
stay indoors where
the chill of this winter
day isn’t felt so intensely.

More snow will fall tonight.
Morning will bring a
wonderland of imagery.
Trees clothed in crystals,
making me think fairies
have visited in the night.

2005 Feb

New York Tumbleweeds

After the heat of summer dissipates and
the plants have birthed their seeds,
‘tis then the tumbleweeds
escape their lairs
to scatter across the land.

Across miles of pasture, meadow and lane
the tumbleweeds journey
to find where their children will land.
Seeds whipping about in the wind,
tumbling, tumbling,
flying here and there.

Fences and houses and barns all alike
stop the travelers abruptly.
In my own backyard the weeds are silent.
Stopped in their tracks
by the tall wooden fence,
hidden from view of the highway.

Thousand of siblings
litter the land,
caught up on barb wire fences.
All along the highways and byways
they cling to fences,
they are trapped in crevices,
they wait for a big wind to move them along.
City folks came through
one hot autumn day,
marveling at the multitudes
of tumbleweeds they’d seen along the way.

A stop at my door
to inquire about the weeds
lining the fence rows
brought a chuckle to my day
and a gift for the folks from far away.

“Can we purchase some of those
tumbleweeds lining your fence?” they asked.
I replied, “Take all you want. We’ve plenty
to share. No payment need be made.”

Smiles big and broad appeared on
two strangers faces.
They gathered up half a dozen
tumbleweeds, stuffing them into
their trunk.
That little red car drove off
with a new kind of vigor beneath it’s hood.
Two happy strangers
taking gifts from the prairie
to a city on the east coast.

I wonder what the folks back home
thought when their neighbors
arrived with a trunk load of tumbleweeds.

It is now July, the green
tumbleweeds still firmly
attached to their spots.
Come a month from now
they will have turned brown and
escaped their growing places.

Again there will be plenty to share
with anyone who cares to adopt a few.
Perhaps those folks will come again
to the prairie, take home with them
some weeds we despise and
take smiles and gratitude as well.
29 July 06

Human Souls

The Human Soul Needs Actual Beauty More Than Bread
D. H. Lawrence

The time is at hand to recount the joys
here within my midst.
Everyone says I should do that every now and again.

Habits sometimes take over my life and
usually I don’t even notice.
Mother says to take a good look around
and I might see what I am missing.
Now I know what she means.

Seeing the beauty set before me was not so easy to do.
Only ugliness seemed to shine in my eyes,
until I opened them up, wiped them off,
letting the little things be visible once more.

Never mind the grand things so obvious in your sight.
Everyone needs beauty, more than bread.
Everyone needs to feed his soul.
Demand of yourself the best you can give,
surely that shouldn’t be too hard.

Abandon beauty of any kind and you shall perish in short time.
Certainly life is more pleasant when we can smile instead of frown.
Take what you can from what you’re handed
unless you like living in gloom.
Adjust your bearings to include smiles on an hourly basis.
Love like you’ve got nothing to lose.

Beauty is abundant wherever you search.
Even in ugliness loveliness can be found.
Alter the course and the scenery will change,
unless you’re blind to everything.
Think loving thoughts when hate creeps in,
you’ll fight the demons and most certainly win.

Mother was right. Just look around.
Uncover what can be found.
Choices abound, make the right ones.
Human hearts need attractiveness to beat true.

Managing the heart in your chest is
only the beginning of finding beauty in each moment.
Remember to stop and smell the roses
even when you can’t smell a thing.

That life is short and too quickly gone
hinders us from living it fully.
All dressed up and nowhere to go…
now is the time to find a destination you can live with.

Believe what you learned yesterday.
Readily seek splendor in your everyday.
Eventually you’ll not notice the dreadfulness
surrounding your body.
Anyone can look far beyond the sight of their own eyes.
Decide you want to see it all and see it all you shall.

19 Feb 06

A Star In The Heavens

I lay awake in the darkness
and listen to you breathe.
Cloaked in the softness of your arms
reaching out
as beside me you sleep.

Where have you been since time began?
Were you here all along,
hiding in the shadows
that followed me in the gloom of this life?

You seem to know just where to touch
to make the demons relinquish my soul.
You kissed away the nights of loneliness
when I slept alone.

When time went astray in the years gone passed
I was floundering in a sea of vacant dreams.
You came along and gave me hope
for a better tomorrow.
Tomorrow arrived and left again and again…
Still hope lives on.

Where once were shadows,
you produced tenderness to ease the way.
Where kisses were null and void…
you gave fire to kindle the flames.

Your eyes see not the faults I possess,
your eyes see the beauty inherent in me.
You see what others
didn’t look deep enough to find.
You dug through the dirt
to find the diamonds.
Then you polished them with love
and now I shine like
a star in the heavens.

25 March 2006

In the Ocean of Arrogance

In the ocean of arrogance
the peacocks knead their thoughts
through channels embedded in long ago
strands of genetic diversity.

Once gloriously adorned with the silver of kings,
peacocks grew blue to their diminished sheen.
Purples and greens struck with red lightning bolts and
shimmers remained to keep them tame.

Eggs of pale snow laid in nests of golden straw,
hatchlings arrive to carve new roads
from old habits embedded in all that diversity.
Birds adapt as do humans when things begin to change.

On legs of two with wings stretched wide
some of us have actually learned how to fly.
Screaming over the mountains,
singing songs of love in the trees.
Killing early worms with our needs.

Oh, yes he struts,
he saunters about,
the shimmering one with
covering of blue.

His eyes are entangled in the lines on his face.
His mouth lost to the voices he hears that shout.
Fear grips the one without wings,
unable to soar to the top of things.

He sits in his finery with gloom on his lap
where the cat won’t travel
now that it is so black
in his mind where things used to shine.

Falseness gathers ‘round like the dark
where sparks used to abide.
Blue are his eyes with tears of silver
falling upon his coat of indigo.

His struts are all show.
His saunters are to fool those
who think they know him best.
But that mind never ceases during daylight hours.

At night it shuts down completely.
The genetic diversity leaves him opposite his brother
who shuts down during sun’s visits.
The moon knows the soul not.

And his brother silently creeps in the deepest of night.
He keeps hidden behind shadows
where no one can see the real of him.
He lives in splendor in the dark.

Brothers both on a quest to find
the things hidden deep in woman’s mind.
They know not the path to travel
to find the contentment that could be owned
because they look inside instead of out and
there’s nothing in there to keep them whole.
7 July 07

Maybe She’s A Bluebird

All of my fancy and all of my dreams
take me to yesterday where
waters course through crystal streams.

Dreams dreamt in the deepest night
and fancies taken in sweetness
on the mountain in the moonlight.

I took all my memories and set them free.
Cleared my mind of interruptions
and kept only what I need.

When I was a beggar and I was thief
she took all my wickedness
and gave me relief.

Maybe she is a bluebird on the wing
and I am her melody
to bind the songs she sings.

Star dust wafting through calmness to stay
where the notions of yesterday don‘t matter anymore.
Maybe she’s a bluebird who will never fly away.
18 May 06

A Mess Up

Doors came up in conversation.
Someone couldn’t open them up.
He said to give it a yank,
pull real hard and
you’ll be in the right place.

Well I opened that door only to find
a million computers on desks far and wide,
not a door in sight, bodies in fright and
computers whirring along.
Comrades with vacant eyes sat at those
desks there in the high-rise.

Men were traveling on long lonely roads
trying to take cargo to where it needed to go.
Trucks of all colors gliding down a gray lane
took bundles and packages and necessities we need.
To the masses delivered by men tuff and strong
to warehouses in the suburbs.

Trinkets galore driven by truck,
taken to a destination where
getting bought is just pure luck.
Things we don’t need to survive in this world,
things that boy thinks is the want of his girl.
Rambling lines slither round corners sharp
waiting for their due.

Refrigerators hold cold, cold things
that bring delight to a young’uns tongue.
Chocolate, frozen on a stick,
vanilla ice cream hidden under dreams.
The man comes round in his van ‘bout noon,
ringing his bell, playing his tunes.
Out came our nickels and dimes
to play out fantasies in childhood thoughts.

We didn’t wear masks in the time of our youth.
We didn’t need the masks then.
We already knew the truth.
Truth that was lost the older we grew.
I miss my old problems
where trouble wasn’t trouble at all but a
chance to learn to simply grow up.

And it was doors that started this whole mess
where I ran off the track and went back instead.
Trinkets, refrigerators, trucks and masks,
eyes rambling, computers on hold.
What are the chances we will wake tomorrow
knowing without doubt today actually occurred?
Is time lost when it passes? And just where does it go?

A mess up, indeed.

2 July 07

basking in love’s warm thrills (gross blank poem)

moon glow, iced fields of stubble glisten like diamonds
on the hand of a maiden fair ready to join
with her man in encounters of the fair kind. kisses
exchanged under darkness, in rooms heated warmly.
together they lie , satin sheets, a virgin bed,
a lifetime collectively began, eyes seeing
the beauty within, lips tasting love’s sweet nectar,
hearts joined as one, the hurtful past left behind them.
the future starts today in beautiful release
from chains that bound their hearts alone, now together
forever in harmony with love to see them through.
old age shall find them still basking in love’s warm thrills

15 January 2007

Four

I stood under a million stars in the night.
I wanted a hand holding mine tight.
Into the heavens I gazed with wonder.
I wanted a man to save me from going under.
As he softly strummed his guitar in the dark
I wanted my life to be less stark.
Music rolled gently under the stars,
I wanted a man near, not far.
He played for another in the moon’s glow.
I wanted one, my heart to know.
Three were there on the lake shore.
I wanted it to be four.

10 September 2005